 market turmoil soaring inflation and interest rates have been the entire has rather have the entire country on edge mounting fears of a possible recession of course the S&P 500 closed in a bear market yesterday just a quick refresher now that means that the index fell 20% or more from a recent high the Dow and the Nasdaq also plunged ahead of the Federal Reserve's high stakes meetings today and tomorrow CBS's Naomi Ruckum is here with more Naomi good morning and Marie good morning there are new fears of a recession after a miserable start to the week on Wall Street all major indexes are facing deep declines with the S&P 500 tumbling to a bear market many Americans are worrying about their retirement funds as stocks dropped to new lows for the year a bitter day on Wall Street has Americans worrying about their retirement funds along with everyday expenses we're confined you know we're just kind of being kind of like kept prisoners in our own our own little spaces because we can't afford to do anything stocks plunged Monday across the board over concerns about inflation and higher interest rates the S&P 500 dropped to 151 points down more than 20% from January highs firmly landing in the claws of a bear market for the first time since the start of the pandemic I think there was this fear that in fact higher prices and rising interest rates are going to keep eating into corporate profits and the consumers are not going to be able to maintain their current level of spending tech companies like Amazon and Apple pulled the Nasdaq into deeper declines the crypto market crashed to wiping out billions of dollars investors are closely watching the Federal Reserve which is meeting this week to discuss raising interest rates at least half a percentage point problem is that the Fed was laden with fighting inflation and now they're kind of scrambling for those anxious about their 401ks experts say riding out a downturn may prove a stronger strategy than selling off you shouldn't just blow out of your stock positions just because what's happening today or tomorrow even in six months most people who are investors are investing for the long term but be patient bear markets can take two years or longer to break even the Federal Reserve is ending its meeting tomorrow when chairman Jerome Powell will make a presentation and take questions some economists are speculating that the Fed may raise rates by three quarters of a percent something that hasn't happened since 1994 and re all right Naomi thank you so here with more analysis is a professional trader Melissa Armo she is the founder and owner of the stock swoosh thanks for joining us listen Melissa you know the people who play the stock market they understand all these terms bear market recession you know and it means something to them but they're not investing the mortgage payment right the rest of us who have 401ks and we're watching them tumble what I want to understand is what all of this means to us so we'll start with a bear market what does it mean but also what does it mean to the average person's bottom line well it's really easy what a bear market means just very simplistically is that there's more selling going on every day on Wall Street in stocks and the overall market like the S&P then there's buying so selling means fear and panic so people are dumping their positions or long positions remember the market has been rallying up so even people in their 401ks have invested for a long time they've seen massive massive spikes up 40% we've even been since the last couple elections so the market's had a nice run up people are taking profits the problem is that people thought the market would continue up forever and ever and ever that's not happening as far as regular everyday people if you're not in retirement a close retirement it doesn't really affect you that much what's affecting people in a day-to-day basis is the cost of goods and services and the cost of gas those things are affecting people and obviously if we get into a recession there's a possibility that companies corporations will cut back to save money and therefore lay people off so remember one of the biggest expenses that corporations have is payroll it's real estate and payroll so they will cut back and lay people off and that would be a problem especially since we've had such low unemployment for the last few years since since this drop in COVID and then people then were brought back to work so now you bring me to the other word recession which sort of you know to me means we're heading towards a rough economic times in a general term but you know you point out that recession means also that companies are going to spend less which means if they're spending less they may be laying people off so give us kind of the real world definition of recession what are the concerns we should have and is there anything that we can do to prepare for it because it feels like you hear the word recession and you just got to hang on and hope that you'll you know get through it the most important thing is making sure that you have money coming in every month that you have stable employment if you've been long-term with your company you probably have stable employment but as far as retirement people remember they're in fixed income so there's not much if you're retired already in retirement that you can do if you're living on Social Security or pension I would be concerned about making sure you have full-time employment and that it's pretty secure do a good job show up for work every day care about the people that you work with and doing a good job as far as you know overall everyday things what can we do to prepare for it not much things are going to continue to cost more what the definition of a recession is it means that the economy slows down so the economy slows down so people are spending less money and again companies may lay people off because they're spending less money so it means a slower economy we've been in a really hot economy where things were moving pretty quickly when Trump was president and then we had COVID so the economy slowed down then Biden became president and now we're having issues that we never anticipated the war in Russia and Ukraine that's going on right now and also we're seeing again rising interest rates which we'll find out by tomorrow like you said are they going to raise interest rates a half a point or 75 basis points I really think that that's going to hurt if they do that we'll see how the market react by the end of the day tomorrow yeah we will see and hopefully we get a chance to talk to you again you know you're just reminding me we've been talking a lot about the great resignation and all these people sort of waiting to see if the right job comes around this may be the time to you know take that next good job offer according to the advice you're giving us Melissa Melissa Armel thank you very much thank you