How to Invest if Unemployment Rises in 2025: Pro Playbook

What the pros actually do when layoff chatter picks up

Insider secret you won’t hear on CNBC: when unemployment starts edging up, the first move on Wall Street isn’t a bold stock call, it’s raising liquidity and upgrading quality. Boring? Maybe. Effective? Yeah. I’ve sat in those risk meetings; the agenda is almost insultingly simple and it works when the labor tape turns.

Cash up. Quality up. Risk bands tighter. Do the basics before you try to be a hero.

Here’s the context, because it matters. Unemployment shocks come in two flavors. Sometimes it’s a cliff: in April 2020 the U.S. unemployment rate spiked to 14.7% (BLS, 2020). Other times it grinds: in the last cycle it crept and peaked at 10.0% in October 2009 (BLS, 2009). The playbook below is built for both, the sudden stop and the slow leak. And yes, we’re in Q4 2025, which means holiday hiring can mask the trend for a few weeks. If jobless claims trend higher later this year, you want a plan that still works if it’s a head-fake.

One more data anchor before we set the playbook: the labor market’s cushion isn’t what it was at the peak. Job openings hit about 12.0 million in March 2022 (BLS JOLTS, 2022) and have come down a lot since. I won’t overfit current prints here, claims wiggle week to week and seasonals get weird into year-end, but the direction of travel is what pros watch. Rate-sensitive pockets (temp help, transportation) usually blink first.

What the pros actually do when layoff chatter picks up:

• Raise liquidity: lift cash targets by a few points. Not 30% cash, this isn’t bunker mode, but enough to fund rebalances without forced selling. I’ve literally penciled “+200-300 bps cash” on a risk deck and no one argued.
• Upgrade quality: rotate from lower-quality credit to IG, favor balance-sheet strength over story stocks. This is where you trim CCCs and add A/AA. It’s not glamorous. It’s durable.
• Lengthen bond duration (selectively): when growth risk rises, duration becomes your friend if you’re not fighting a fresh inflation shock. We’d extend from, say, 3-4 years toward the 6-7-year part. Not a giant barbell, just.. longer.
• Set tighter rebalancing bands: narrow your drift limits so you’re forced to act on volatility, not react to headlines. 5% bands become 3%. Small tweak, big behavior change.
• Build a “two-path” queue: have orders ready for both outcomes, a genuine softening or a false alarm. If claims cool, you add cyclicals back. If they don’t, you keep upgrading quality. It’s basically a decision tree you can run on a Tuesday morning before coffee.

I might be oversimplifying, there’s nuance around inflation breakevens, term premium, and earnings revisions. And, okay, I’m slightly sidetracked thinking about how many times in 2020 we lengthened duration overnight and then debated convexity for an hour.. point is, the pros default to process. You don’t need a perfect forecast. You need a playbook that survives both the spike and the grind.

In this section, you’ll get that playbook for a softening labor market in 2025: how to raise liquidity without tanking returns, where to find quality upgrades that still leave upside, and how to use tighter bands so one lousy payroll print doesn’t whipsaw your whole portfolio.

First line of defense: cash, runway, and required expenses

Before trying to thread the needle with factor tilts and duration tweaks, make sure the household balance sheet can take a job shock. Claims have been choppy and the unemployment rate is off the lows this year, and, being blunt, markets don’t send calendar invites before they tighten your budget. The play here is boring on purpose: build a cash runway that lets you think clearly if income wobbles.

Rule of thumb I actually use with clients and in my own house: target 6-12 months of core expenses in cash-like assets. If your industry is cyclical (media/advertising, construction, venture-backed tech, freight), lean to the high end, call it 9-12 months. Quick worksheet: if your core nut is $5,500/month (rent or mortgage, insurance premiums, groceries, minimum debt payments, utilities, transit), your cash bucket is $33k-$66k. Not the dreamiest use of capital, but it buys control.

Where to park it? Two simple lanes:

• High-yield savings at an FDIC/NCUA-insured institution. Keep the per depositor, per insured bank limit in mind, FDIC coverage is $250,000 and hasn’t changed since 2010. Split across banks if you’re over that. Liquidity is same-day, which helps if a layoff lands on a Friday.
• Treasury bills, laddered 4-26 weeks. No credit risk, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S., and historically they track the policy rate well. For context, during the 2022-2023 hiking cycle the 3‑month T‑bill yield went from ~0.05% in January 2022 to 5%+ by late 2023 (Treasury/Bloomberg data), which is exactly the behavior you want when short rates are elevated. If the Fed cuts later this year or in 2026, you just roll down the ladder. Simple.

Prioritize the must-pay items first, this is where people get cute and regret it later:

1. Rent/mortgage (keep a clean housing record; it helps on refis and future leases).
2. Insurance premiums (health, auto, homeowners/renters, big claims come at the worst possible time).
3. Loan payments and minimums (mortgage, auto, student loans, credit cards). Protect your credit score; borrowing costs jump fast if you ding it.

Credit reality check: FICO notes a single 30‑day late can drop a score by roughly 60-110 points, depending on starting score and file thickness. Miss two and lenders reprice you into penalty APR territory on cards (often mid‑20s%). Paying minimums is not glamorous, it’s cheap defense.

If you’re 50+, consider a larger buffer. This isn’t fear-mongering; it’s cycle math. In the last deep downturn, the median unemployment duration in the U.S. peaked around 25 weeks in 2010 (BLS), and older workers tended to be jobless longer than prime‑age peers. In the 2020 shock, median duration jumped again, my memory is it settled near the high teens by late 2020, then stayed sticky into 2021, while re‑employment for 55+ lagged. I’m nitpicking the exact month in my head, but the pattern is clear: older workers often take longer to land comparable roles. So a 9-12+ month cash runway is just prudent.

A couple nuts‑and‑bolts tips I’ve learned the hard way: automate weekly transfers into the cash bucket so you don’t “forget”, keep a one‑page bill map that lists due dates and autopay status, and ladder T‑bills so one maturity hits every month, you’ll sleep better. Also, don’t chase yield with credit risk in the defense bucket; the point is certainty, not squeezing an extra 30 bps. If I sound conservative here, it’s because when the labor market softens, and it might keep softening into Q4, optionality beats cleverness nine times out of ten.

Bonds when jobs wobble: extend duration, tighten credit

If the labor market keeps softening into Q4, I want my fixed income to do two things: hedge equity drawdowns and avoid landmines. The core move is simple, add intermediate-to-long Treasuries. In past downturns, duration was a reliable diversifier when stocks sank. Hard numbers: in 2008, the Bloomberg US Long Treasury Index returned about +24% while the S&P 500 fell roughly −37%. In 2020, long Treasuries finished the year up ~+17% while equities whipsawed through a −34% peak-to-trough selloff in March. That’s not a promise for 2025, it’s context; but it’s the right playbook when unemployment rises and the Fed is closer to cutting than hiking.

Credit is where folks get snagged. As jobless claims climb, spreads usually widen, hurting lower-quality debt first. Two datapoints that still sit on my desk: high-yield option-adjusted spreads (OAS) blew out past 1,000 bps in March 2020 (ICE BofA data), and default rates peaked near 13% in 2009 (Moody’s global spec-grade). Translation: when unemployment jumps (it hit 14.7% in April 2020; in 2009 it hovered near 10%), junk bond math turns against you. So I’d dial down high-yield and lower-tier floating-rate loans. Keep any credit risk modest, diversified, and preferably up-in-quality, think short, senior, liquid. And if you’re going to own HY, size it like hot sauce, not the entrée.

Where to park the ballast? High-quality core bond funds or straight Treasuries. A simple mix of 5-10 year Treasuries paired with a core aggregate fund gives you rate sensitivity without betting the farm on one maturity point. If I slip and say “key rate duration” (wonky term), what I really mean is: spread your interest-rate exposure across a few maturities so one bad day on the curve doesn’t ruin the whole month. In a slowdown, I favor more on-the-run Treasuries and fewer spread sectors with cyclical beta.

Rates later this year could fall if growth cools and the Fed follows through on easing talk. That has a personal finance angle: consider refinancing variable-rate debt. But don’t chase a shiny headline rate, run the break-even. Example: a $400,000 loan that drops from 7.25% to 6.25% saves about $250-$300/month (depends on term). If fees and points total $5,000, your break-even is roughly $5,000 ÷ $275 ≈ 18 months. If you won’t keep the loan past that, skip it. Also watch points; 1% on that balance is $4,000, which sneaks up on you when you’re tired and scrolling at 11:30 p.m..

Quick allocation tweak I’m using right now (just my take):

• Add 5-10% to intermediate Treasuries; sprinkle 3-5% in 20+ year Treasuries for convexity.
• Trim high-yield/CCC exposure; prefer BB/BBB via diversified funds, small sleeve only.
• Favor core bond funds with low fees, high liquidity, and solid Treasury/Agency ballast.

One last thing, liquidity matters when markets gap. I’d rather own something I can sell on a choppy Friday than pick up an extra 30-40 bps in thier yield and be stuck on Monday.

Equities: quality cash flows, resilient sectors, and dividends that survive

If unemployment bumps higher this year (even by 0.5 to 1.0 percentage point ) the market usually stops rewarding “story stocks” and starts paying for durability. I’m not trying to be cute here; I’m trying to make sure equity exposure can handle slower unit demand and tighter credit at the same time. The simple frame: stronger free cash flow, higher ROIC, and manageable use. That’s your defensive core.

Quick context so this isn’t hand-wavy. Over the past decade, sector betas have been pretty stable: consumer staples and utilities have run with betas around 0.6-0.8, healthcare roughly 0.7-0.9, while consumer discretionary and industrials typically sit closer to 1.1-1.3. In plain English, the first group usually wiggles less when the market gets jumpy. During past slowdowns, these lower-beta sectors have historically lost less in drawdowns and recovered earlier once rate-cut hopes show up. Not glamorous, just repeatable.

What to favor right now

• Quality factors: Look for free-cash-flow (FCF) margins above ~5-7%, ROIC comfortably over the firm’s weighted average cost of capital, and net debt/EBITDA under ~2x (banks/REITs have their own math, obviously). Companies that cover capex and buybacks from internal cash, not the revolver, usually sleep better, and so do we.
• Sector tilt: Consumer staples, healthcare, and utilities tend to hold up better when demand softens. Don’t over-concentrate in highly cyclical names (deep cyclicals, early-stage biotech without cash, levered discretionary). I’ve made that mistake in ’08 and again in 2015… didn’t love the feeling.
• Dividends that survive: The payout ratio matters more than the yield. The S&P 500’s aggregate payout ratio sat around 35-40% in 2023 (S&P Dow Jones data), which gives most large caps some cushion. I prefer names with payout ratios under ~60% and FCF payout under ~70% so a mid-single-digit revenue dip doesn’t force a cut. A 5% yield with a 95% payout is a booby trap, not income.
• Small caps with guardrails: Small caps are more rate- and credit-sensitive. Russell 2000 ex-financials saw interest coverage sag to roughly 2-3x in 2023 in several datasets, while large caps were nearer 8-10x. If you hold small caps, I’d lean into quality-tilted small-cap ETFs (higher ROE/ROIC screens, positive FCF, lower use) to avoid the junky tail.

Now, how does this square with the “how-to-invest-if-unemployment-rises-in-2025” worry that’s floating around? Historically, when the unemployment rate rises by around 0.5 percentage point from its cycle low (a common recession threshold academics watch ) earnings estimate revisions skew negative, and multiples compress for low-quality balance sheets first. That’s where the quality tilt earns its keep.

Practical screens I’m using (and yes, this is getting a bit nerdy):

1. Forward FCF yield > 4-5% and positive trailing five-year FCF in at least 4 of 5 years.
2. ROIC minus WACC > 2 percentage points. If you can’t estimate WACC, a rough ROIC > 10% is a decent shortcut.
3. Net debt/EBITDA < 2x; for utilities, focus on interest coverage > 3.5x and regulated rate base growth > GDP-ish.
4. Dividend payout < 60% (or FCF payout < 70%).

One last nuance: this isn’t a call to abandon growth. It’s a call to pay for profitable growth with cash flow support. If unemployment drifts up later this year and credit stays tight, balance sheets with term-out debt and pricing power will, statistically speaking, just have an easier time. And yes, I know I’m oversimplifying (markets always find new ways to make us feel silly ) but this checklist kept me out of a few potholes earlier this year, and I’m sticking with it.

Tactical toolkit: rebalancing bands, tax moves, and buy-the-dips without guessing bottoms

When unemployment drifts up and volatility wakes up, you don’t need hero trades, you need rules. Simple ones. I’ve tried the other way; it works until it really doesn’t. Here’s what’s on my dashboard right now.

• Rebalancing bands you actually follow. Set absolute 5% bands around target weights (e.g., a 60/40 can rebalance when stocks hit 65% or 55%), or use relative 20% bands (an asset at 10% target trims/adds at 12% or 8%). Research by Daryanani (2008) on “opportunistic rebalancing” showed threshold-based bands beat calendar rebalancing by roughly 0.3% per year on average, small, but persistent. The key is alerts and automation; no “I’ll get to it after earnings season.”
• Tax-loss harvesting (TLH), done cleanly. Vol spikes help here. Vanguard’s 2020 work estimated a median 0.2%-0.5% annual after-tax benefit from TLH in taxable accounts, stretching to ~1% in choppier years. Two musts: mind the wash-sale 30-day rule (IRS Pub. 550) and harvest into a “sufficiently similar” but not substantially identical ETF or fund so you stay invested. Track tax lots precisely; I’ve seen people harvest the wrong lot because their broker defaulted to FIFO, painful.
• DCA into risk on a schedule. No, you’re not going to pick the bottom. A set biweekly or monthly buy into your equity sleeve reduces decision fatigue. Vanguard’s 2012 paper found lump sum beat DCA about two-thirds of the time historically, but DCA cut downside regret: which matters when the VIX is yelling. If you want to speed up contributions on drawdowns, fine, but only after your cash buffer (3-6 months expenses, more if you’ve got variable income) is fully baked.
• Roth conversions in drawdowns. Lower asset values can mean converting more shares for the same tax cost, and if your 2025 marginal bracket is temporarily lower (job change, bonus timing, RMD dynamics), that’s worth modeling. Coordinate with a CPA to map 2025 brackets, state taxes, and Medicare IRMAA cliffs, remember, IRMAA uses a two-year lookback, so 2025 premiums tie to 2023 MAGI. A partial conversion beats blowing through a bracket and regretting it in April.
• Hedges: keep it simple and sized. If you must hedge, use index puts or collars on broad indices. Keep notionals modest (e.g., 10-20% of equity exposure) and expiries short. Long-run data show permanent hedges are a drag, studies around CBOE indices and protective-put strategies have found steady premium bleed on the order of a few percent per year. Use them as temporary shock absorbers, not a lifestyle choice.

Why these rules line up for a softening labor tape and higher vol? Because they’re reaction functions, not forecasts. The long-run U.S. unemployment average since 1948 sits around ~5.7% (BLS), so when we migrate off the cyclical floor, it’s normal for drawdowns to cluster. And volatility isn’t a new invention, the VIX average since 1990 is roughly 19-20, which means those 25-35 prints aren’t rare; they just feel loud.

Quick checklist I actually use:
• Bands: 5% absolute or 20% relative; check monthly, auto-trade when tripped.
• TLH: lot-level tracking on, harvest into clear alternates, calendar a 31-day “switch-back” if desired.
• DCA: locked calendar buys; accelerate only after cash reserve is done.
• Roth: bracket map for 2025, IRMAA check, partial only, pay taxes from cash.
• Hedges: SPX or total-market puts/collars, small size, clear exit date.

One more human note: rebalancing feels worst when it works best, trimming winners in melt-ups and adding to stuff that just got hit. That’s the point. If unemployment ticks higher later this year and credit stays picky, these mechanical moves help you buy when spreads are wide and sell when they’re tight; not perfectly, but reliably. And reliability, in Q4, with holiday budgets and year-end distributions flying around, is wildly underrated.

Career and credit insurance: protect your human capital and borrowing power

When the labor market cools, I treat my job and my credit like assets on the balance sheet. Why? Because they are. If hiring slows and interviews stretch from two weeks to two months, liquidity isn’t just cash. It’s employability and an untouched credit line you can draw on if you must.

First, career hygiene. Update the resume and portfolio now, not after your team’s headcount review. Best time to network? Before layoffs get whispered about. Obvious, yes, and defintely ignored until it’s too late. The openings-to-unemployed ratio has come down, BLS JOLTS shows it near around 1.3 in August 2025, down from roughly 2.0 at the 2022 peak. Translation: you still have options, but they’re not elbowing each other to hire you. Book two coffees a week, ping former managers, post something useful on LinkedIn so you’re not a cold inbound.

Second, credit optionality. Keep existing credit lines open and unused. Your utilization ratio matters way more than people think; FICO guidance has long pointed to staying under 30% utilization, and the best scores tend to live in the single digits. If you’ve got a $20k line and carry $1k, that’s 5%, great. At 60%, not great. And with average credit card APRs sitting near 21% in Q3 2025 (Fed G.19), expensive balances compound pain fast. I keep one general-purpose card at 0-5% utilization and pay in full, on autopay, purely to keep the score sturdy.

Third, price-check income protection. Disability insurance is boring until it’s the only thing paying your mortgage. The Social Security Administration has said roughly 1 in 4 20-year-olds will experience a disability before retirement age (SSA, 2023). Employer LTD often covers ~60% of base, not bonus, and elimination periods can be 90 days. Get quotes for a supplemental policy and run the math against your fixed expenses. It’s not cheap, but neither is a 6-month job search.

Fourth, know your emergency levers before you need them. 401(k) rules changed recently: starting 2024, SECURE 2.0 allows a $1,000 penalty-free emergency distribution once per year, with repayment rules, but only if your plan implements it, many do, some don’t. Some plans also added emergency savings accounts (up to $2,500) tied to payroll, again plan-dependent. On the brokerage side, ask your firm about margin and maintenance requirements; Reg T sets 50% initial margin, but house maintenance could be 30-40% or more during volatility. If you’re counting on margin as a backstop, be realistic, margin calls don’t care about your job search timeline.

One more Q4-specific point: if you expect income volatility, avoid new big-ticket debt adds now, cars, kitchen remodels, that ski condo you “might rent out.” Optionality is worth more when the job market softens. And yes, this connects to investing too. If unemployment edges higher later this year and spreads stay wide, I’d rather keep my debt light and my credit score strong so I can rebalance risk assets on weakness instead of selling under stress.

Is this overkill? Maybe. But here’s my actual checklist for Q4 when the labor tape looks wobbly:

Career + credit checklist:
• Resume, portfolio, references: updated this week; 2 networking touches per week.
• Credit: keep utilization under 10%; keep old cards open; autopay on.
• Liquidity map: 6 months cash; list of backup levers (401(k) emergency distribution eligibility, Roth basis, HSA, HELOC).
• Insurance: quote supplemental LTD; confirm elimination periods; know partial disability riders.
• Debt: freeze new big-ticket debt; no 0% promos unless you can clear before the teaser ends.

If that feels like a lot, that’s fair. But the gist is simple: protect the paystub, protect the score. Those two make everything else, budget, portfolio, even holiday spending later this year, way easier to manage when headlines get noisy.

Tie it together: the “boring wins” downturn playbook

Here’s where it all connects. Sequence matters. In messy markets it’s the difference between sleeping at night and doomscrolling at 2 a.m. My order is not fancy, just durable:

1. Secure the cash runway. Six months for most households; nine to twelve if your industry is cyclically exposed. Think payroll buffer first, returns later. The whole point is avoiding forced sales when pricing is dumb.
2. Fortify bonds. Shift the core to high-quality duration you can actually hold: Treasuries and AA/A IG corporates. I like laddered Treasuries across 1-5 years and a core intermediate IG fund. 2022 reminded us why: a classic 60/40 had a roughly -16% calendar-year decline (Bloomberg data), the worst since 2008. Quality and staggering maturities helps you stay put.
3. Upgrade equity quality. Tilt from high beta and unprofitable stories to cash-heavy, free-cash-flow machines. Keep dividends growing, not just high. If unemployment drifts up a few tenths and growth cools, no recession call needed, the same tilt holds up better in my experience.
4. Only then use rules-based tactics. Rebalancing bands (say 20/25 rule), a simple 200-day or 12-month trend filter on a slice, mechanical DCA on weakness, and pre-defined buy levels for your watchlist. No hero trades. Just rules.

And you don’t need to call a recession to prep. If joblessness just edges higher and hiring slows, the playbook above still fits. Historically, when unemployment rises by about 0.5 percentage points from its 12‑month low, the Sahm Rule says recession risk is elevated; you don’t need a crystal ball to respect that threshold, just a plan. If that trigger never hits, fine, you’re still in higher-quality assets earning real income.

On staying invested: history is pretty loud here. From the March 2009 trough to February 2020, the S&P 500 delivered roughly a +500% total return including dividends (S&P Dow Jones Indices). Investors who bailed early rarely got back in on time. DALBAR’s QAIB study has said versions of the same thing for years; over the 30 years ending 2022, the average equity investor annualized about 6-7% while the S&P ran near 9-10%, a gap driven mostly by panic selling and late chasing. It’s unglamorous, but rules beat vibes almost every time.

So the bigger picture, the money stuff that actually compounds: wealth comes from repeatable habits. Protect the downside (cash + quality), keep dry powder (ladders, short-duration, or plain cash), and let compounding handle the upside. Personally, I set calendar reminders for rebalancing bands and automate buys, because I know, when headlines get loud, I’ll talk myself out of good decisions. You probably will too, not a character flaw, just human.

If you want a super-compact version that sits on the fridge door:

Boring Wins Checklist
• Cash runway funded (6-12 months).
• Core bonds = Treasuries + IG, laddered; no yield tourists.
• Equities = profitable, cash generative, rising dividends; trim the science projects.
• Rules on paper: rebal bands, DCA on weakness, simple trend on a slice, pre-set buys.
• Taxes/fees minimized; automate what you can; ignore what you cant.. for a bit.

Last thing. Markets in Q4 can whipsaw, holiday spending, year-end tax moves, Fed rhetoric. Don’t overfit. If unemployment ticks up later this year, your sequence doesn’t change. If it stabilizes, also fine. The habit stack is the point, not the headline. That’s how you stay in the game long enough to let time do the heavy lifting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Should I worry about rising unemployment messing up my 401(k) right now in Q4 2025?

A: Worry, no. Prepare, yes. The pro playbook is simple: lift cash by about 200-300 bps to avoid forced selling, upgrade quality (tilt from high yield toward investment-grade), and keep risk bands tighter. Don’t go bunker with 30% cash. Watch jobless claims and temp-help trends, holiday hiring can mask weakness. Keep auto-rebalance on and avoid big, panicky allocation shifts.

Q: How do I raise liquidity without tanking my returns if layoffs pick up later this year?

A: Two levers. First, bump cash by ~2-3% using T‑bills or a Treasury money market (keep settlement simple). Fund it by trimming winners, not dumping laggards at bad prices; tax-loss harvest in taxable accounts to offset gains. Second, right-size position sizes so rebalances don’t require fire sales. If you need a little more ballast, stagger 4-26 week T‑bills, easy roll, competitive yield, and you’re not giving up much while you wait.

Q: What’s the difference between lengthening bond duration and just buying more bonds?

A: Buying more bonds is a bigger fixed-income allocation. Lengthening duration is changing the interest-rate sensitivity of your bond sleeve. When growth risk rises, pros often keep overall fixed income similar but shift toward intermediate Treasuries/IG (say, from 1-3 year to 5-7 year) to benefit if yields fall in a slowdown. Key caveat: don’t reach for long-duration junk. If you lengthen, do it in higher-quality segments and consider a barbell (short T‑bills + 5-10 year Treasuries).

Q: Is it better to rotate from high yield to investment grade now, or wait for credit spreads to blow out?

A: Waiting for the perfect entry usually means you’re late. When unemployment risk rises, high yield (especially CCCs) tends to underperform as defaults and downgrades pick up; IG holds up better and benefits more from a rates rally. My practical approach: pre-rotate in steps. Trim lower-quality tiers first, reduce CCC exposure meaningfully, then BBs, while adding A/AA corporates and Treasuries. Example (not gospel): if credit is 25% of your portfolio with 15% HY/10% IG, shift toward 8-10% HY and 15-17% IG over a few tranches. Use rules, not vibes: add to IG when the 4‑week average of initial jobless claims is rising and temp-help employment is rolling over; add another tranche if HY-Treasury spreads widen materially. Implementation: use broad IG credit (or Treasuries) for the duration you want; keep HY via a more diversified vehicle if you insist on staying in. Taxable accounts can harvest losses while upgrading quality; in IRAs it’s simpler, just swap. And mind liquidity: T‑bills or a Treasury money market for your +200-300 bps cash buffer. One more Q4 2025 nuance, holiday hiring can muddle the data for a few weeks, so scale moves rather than all at once. The goal isn’t hero trades; it’s avoiding forced selling and letting higher-quality carry you through the wobble.

@article{how-to-invest-if-unemployment-rises-in-2025-pro-playbook,
    title   = {How to Invest if Unemployment Rises in 2025: Pro Playbook},
    author  = {Beeri Sparks},
    year    = {2025},
    journal = {Bankpointe},
    url     = {https://bankpointe.com/articles/investing-if-unemployment-rises/}
}