When the trade war tanked the market last month and left even seasoned Wall Street pros scrambling, Andrew Skillman kept his cool.

Skillman, a Santa Fe, N.M., resident whose portfolio is split between stocks and bonds, stood pat throughout the market gyrations of early 2025. "I never panicked," the 60-year-old investor said. "Timing the market is fruitless. No one has a crystal ball."

He and other investors with an equally steely resolve are being rewarded in a big way. President Trump's easing of his harsh tariff policies has stoked a comeback in stocks, with major indexes recovering their losses since he rolled out his plans on April 2. Monday's gains came after news that the U.S. and China had slashed tariffs amid fresh trade negotiations.

To get to this point, investors such as Skillman had to absorb -- or ignore -- a lot of bad news. The Nasdaq Composite Index at one point entered bear-market territory. April was headed for its worst month since 1932 until the turnaround happened.

Some traders sought to make the most of the volatile stretch, moving in and out of the market. Others, concerned that the trade conflict would lead the U.S. economy into a recession, took the opportunity to sell stocks and other riskier assets. This year, though, the biggest winners might have been those who did nothing at all.

Those investors who took a hands-off approach to the markets' tariff turmoil say they have made back all of their losses since Trump unveiled steep levies on imported goods -- and held on to their sanity in the process.

Skillman, who considers himself a devotee of John Bogle, the founder of Vanguard Group who championed low-cost funds, usually avoids making changes to his investments in response to short-term volatility. He didn't sell any of his stocks, but also didn't add to his positions, either.

It wasn't easy. For two weeks in April, he stopped checking his brokerage accounts. "I've looked maybe two times since the Rose Garden ceremony," he said.

But when he gathered the nerve to peek at his portfolio this past weekend, he saw that his investments had recovered nearly all of their losses. "I feel partly justified, and the other part is relieved," he said.

In previous downturns, Aaron Heisler couldn't resist the urge to tinker with his portfolio. This year, though, the 51-year-old San Diegan held steady for the first time in his 25 years as a self-directed investor.

"It was great," Heisler said. "It was almost like I had a trained reaction."

Though he's always known that the best advice is to buy and hold, he rarely did that when the market turned choppy.

After 9/11 and through the 2008 financial crisis, he made more tweaks than he now thinks were warranted. And in 2020, rattled by early pandemic volatility, he bailed on small-cap stocks -- only to miss the rebound. "I've just reacted less each time," he said. "It's just age and maturity."

Heisler's overall holdings are still down, but he's content to wait it out. If anything, he wishes he'd had more cash on hand to buy the dip. "I have committed myself to a portfolio allocation that I'm going to stick to," he said.

Some younger investors were patient, too.

"For everyday people, timing the market will probably end poorly," said Luke Padgett, a 25-year-old data engineer in Plano, Texas. "I don't bother trying."

It's a lesson Padgett learned the hard way. As a college student, he once lost $1,000 in a single day on an options trade. Since then, though, he buys and holds; about 80% of his six-figure portfolio is held in the Vanguard Total World Stock Index Fund ETF.

After plummeting last month, the global stock fund is up about 4.6% since the market closed on April 1.

"If this approach goes really wrong, then there will be bigger problems than your portfolio," he said.

A volatile stock market isn't for everyone, and now might be a good time for investors approaching retirement to reassess their risks, said CJ Stermetz, founder of financial-advisory firm EquityFTW. "Ideally, when you start retirement and need to start pulling from your investment accounts, that doesn't line up with a big stock market drop," he said.

That is exactly what Charlie Kinsella, a 69-year-old retiree from Dixon, Ill., decided last month. After decades with nearly all his money in stocks, he shifted 90% of his portfolio into cash and money-market funds. With a fixed income, he now gives priority to stability over the potential for future gains. "I'm happy with the 4-4.5% that we're getting," he said.

While some retirees are pulling out of the market, others are leaning in. One year into retirement, Rico Rosales, a 66-year-old former Big Law partner in Palo Alto, Calif., recently added U.S. and Chinese stocks to his grandchildren's 529 accounts.

"I have seen enough up and down markets to know that I was not afraid of at least investing some more," he said.

Rosales has also learned from past mistakes. Burned by the dot-com bust of the early 2000s, he was quick to sell the IPO shares he received in promising tech startups. As a result, he missed out on the massive surges in Google and Facebook, two of the Magnificent Seven stocks that now dominate the market.

Now he's firmly committed to a diversified, buy-and-hold strategy.

"Generally speaking, the trend is up and to the right," he said. "And I want to participate in that upward trend."

Even if it means going against his gut.

"You really do have to brace yourself," he said, "and resist the urge to do something."