Podcast Episode - The Certainty of Uncertainty

This Suze School episode dives into how uncertainty drives volatility in the stock market. Despite what’s happening now, you don’t need to panic about market dips, especially if you are  dollar-cost averaging into quality stocks.  Suze also has advice for federal workers experiencing this current shutdown and how the shutdown affects all of us.

Listen to Podcast Episode:

Podcast Transcript:

Suze: October 12, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast, as well as everybody smart enough to listen. Today is Suze School, so get out those notebooks.

Are you ready?

Today Suze School is titled "The Certainty of Uncertainty." Because the stock market, the stock market doesn't hate anything more than uncertainty.

If there is uncertainty in the air, that's when the markets start to go down. And why is that? I want you right now to think about your own life when you're really uncertain about something. You're either afraid or you're just uncertain about what's going to happen. You know, should you do this? Should you do that? You tend to do nothing or, let's say you're uncertain. Is it going to rain? Is it not? You stay in the house. You protect yourself when you are uncertain.

So why does that affect the stock market? Because you, whether you know it or not, you are the stock market. I know you think the stock market is made up of shares—shares of stock in companies, either individual shares or bundled as mutual funds, ETFs, whatever it may be. But what you have to understand is it is you, me, KT. It is people that buy and sell those shares. Just that simple.

And when you get uncertain about anything or you see something that upsets you, when you're like, "Oh my God, here we go again. I'm uncertain of the outcome. I'm uncertain of how this is going to affect me," what do you do? You tend to sell—especially if the markets are ticking down. Especially—listen to me closely—if you have incredible gains in some of your stocks. Incredible gains—100%, 200% gains in stocks that so many people want you to be afraid of. Because why? They say we're in an AI bubble. They want these stocks to go down.

Why do I personally think they want these stocks to go down? Because they missed it. And who is "they"? Many of the institutional investors, many of the big traders. They missed it. So if they can get everything to start to go down, they get to go in and buy it again at a much lower price.

However, when you hear things like that—because I'm getting emails from all of you going, "Suze, do you think we are in an AI bubble?" I keep saying no, I don't. "Do you think, Suze, we're going to have a stock market crash like we did back in 2007, 2008, 2009?" No, I don't.

The situations are so different today than they were back then—so different. Today many of these companies are creating the future of the unknown. The future that we don't even have an ability to comprehend what's going to happen. But it's coming. And we all want to be a part of it, but we're afraid to be a part of it because, in our limited minds, we think: You made so much money, we can't possibly make more. It can't possibly go higher.

You have to get a grip on the reality of the future, because as I've said to you before, the future isn't the future. The future is now. It's already happening, and I personally want you to be a part of it.

However, there are powers that be that will offset the track of the markets by inserting uncertainty in many different ways. And there is so much uncertainty going on right now it's not even funny.

The truth of the matter is Friday morning the markets opened up. Everything was kind of good. No problems. Until President Trump came out and he made an announcement: "Well, I guess there's not going to be a reason for me to have to go meet with the President of China. In fact, I think I'm going to put tariffs back on China." And why did he get mad at China?

Because China decided that importers—people who import into the United States—needed to get a license from Beijing that contained anything that had to do with rare earth elements that were more than like 0.1% or more of the value of the whole thing. Which means that those companies like Nvidia that use rare earth materials to manufacture what they make, it's going to cost them more. Or they're going to have to get a license to do so. And Trump retaliated. And as soon as that happened, bam, these markets started to go down.

And once, like a snowball, it starts to roll down the hill and it gets bigger and bigger. It gathers up all the other snow—the unsuspecting snow that's so beautiful and so white—it just comes along for a ride. That's what the majority of you did out there, causing these markets to go down considerably.

However, did they really go down that much overall? Well, that depends on what you were invested in. Now, I want you to put a pin in that for a second because the overall advice that all of you have been given is you need diversification. Absolutely.

And I've said this before—maybe you need 50% of your money in something like VOO, which is Vanguard, Standard and Poor’s 500, or the SPY or VTI, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, or whatever it is that you're invested in. And then, if you want, other types of investments in individual things such as the AI stocks. But that would give you a total balanced approach.

OK, so let me give you an example now of what really happened on Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average went down 878 points, but that was only 1.90%—not that big of a deal. The Standard and Poor’s went down 182 points or only 2.71%. And the Nasdaq, which contains a lot of our favorite stocks, went down 820 points, but again, only 3.56%.

Now what's important when you look at numbers is that you look at percentages more than you look at the actual dollar number that it went down. You could look at the screen on your TV and see, oh my God, the Dow went down 878 points and the Nasdaq went down 820 and the Standard and Poor’s went down 182. It crashed. It didn’t crash. 1.90%, 2.71%, 3.56% is not a crash, everybody. Do you understand that?

Now let’s just look at ETFs and what they did. Did they follow the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index? In fact, they did. The index itself was down 2.71%, so your VOO finished on Friday down 2.69%. SPY finished down 2.70%. The VTI finished down 2.68%. And if you happen to have the SPYD, which is the dividend spiders, it was only down 1.80%—not a big deal.

However, now we start to get more specialized and we look at SMH as well as QQQ. That’s where our technology stocks are, especially SMH, semiconductors. SMH finished down 5.76%. And the QQQs finished down 3.47%.

Now let’s look at the decline of some of our absolute favorite stocks. Nvidia was down about 4.5%, AMD down 8%—but after a tremendous run, truthfully—Tesla down 5%, IONQ down 8.84%, Palantir down 5.40%, Microsoft down 2.19%. They were down, but if you look at what they were down, they’re down almost the same amount as SMH was down.

And again, those stocks, a lot of them got hit because of talk of tariffs, rare earth metals—things like that—that they all need.

What was also interesting is that gold went to about 4,029. Bitcoin did not hold where I told you—if you are on my Women and Money community app—that I wanted to see if it would hold at 123 or so this last Friday. It did not. It closed at about 116. Although it's never really closed, so I wouldn't be surprised if I saw it go down to 108, which is its support level.

Not a big deal. IBIT, which is the Bitcoin ETF, went down 3.70%. Oil, which I just haven't liked and I've said that before, was about 58. What went up happened to be the price of bonds, which means their interest rates absolutely went down. So a one-year now is only at about 3.6%. The 10-year was at about 4%.

So depending on what continues to happen, we just might see mortgages down where we want them, because it looks like it could be going down there. But none of this—none of this—is everything crashing. Now, could it continue to go down? Oh, you betcha it could.

You have to understand that many of the people—big traders, all kinds of things that go on on Wall Street—would like these markets to go down and down. So they could pick up more.

There are all kinds of complicated ways of explaining how trading works and doesn’t work, but here is the real bottom line. Just like I said back many months ago—don’t panic. You are not to panic. And you are really not to panic if it continues to go down even more. That is why you dollar cost average. That is why you take advantage of times like this. But you don’t have to do it tomorrow.

You could take it and you could put in an order 10% below the market, 20% below the market—whatever it may be. And I've told you this time and time again. So if it dips more, you pick it up. Maybe it goes down very quickly for a second and then bounces up. Or you can just wait and see.

For me, what am I personally doing? I'm not doing anything. Remember how a while ago I told you I thought that I had enough IONQ. I had enough Palantir. And even though I was tempted to buy more on Friday—seriously tempted—that would make my positions in those two stocks way too heavy for my portfolio. I have a considerable amount of money in those two stocks, and if I continued to add to it, it would not be wise.

Even though it was the hardest thing for me to do—not to add more shares—I like where I am positioned. I'm happy where everything is, and I don't need to get greedy. I don't need to sell out of fear, and I don't need to buy out of greed. It's just that simple.

So you have to look at your own portfolio, at your own situation, at your own timing. And you need to decide: what is it that you want to do?

Now, with that said, the tariff possibility and all these AI companies really having significant exposure to China in both manufacturing—and they're a large customer, by the way—so all right, legitimate reason to figure out what's going to really happen here. But that's not the only thing that's going on.

So on Friday, what else was going on that really, in my opinion, spooked the market? What spooked them was that we were still in the uncertainty of what is going to happen with the federal government. And the federal government really does have a major effect on everybody.

On Friday, it was its tenth day that it was still shut down. But what's really affecting people more, in my opinion, than even it being shut down, is now all of a sudden the news is out that layoffs of federal workers are actually happening. Not only for the furloughed workers—are they going to get back pay or are they not—but now actual layoffs are starting to be implemented. And that affects everything all the way down the road. It really does.

You know, sometimes we think, oh well, this doesn't really affect me. I don't work for the federal government. Everything today affects every single one of us. And when you see that they're still arguing, they can't come to a decision, who knows how long it will last. And you combine that now with tariffs again and all of a sudden the two most powerful political figures in the world not getting along—the President of China, the President of the United States—it affects you. And what affects you affects the stock market because you are the stock market.

And that's what's going on.

So what can you do about it? As Iyanla Vanzant—remember her? She used to be on Oprah and she had that show Fix My Life—she is a very dear friend of mine. She would always say, "Take a breath." Just take a breath, everybody. So can we just do that all together right now?

Take a breath.

And just know that you were not in the stock market for a day or a month or a year. Didn’t we have an agreement that you were going to be investing for at least five years or longer? So if something goes down, let it go down. Will it come back up? If it's good quality stocks, it is going to come back. And it might come back a lot faster than you have any idea.

So do yourself a favor and just stop looking. If you don’t have the money to dollar cost average more into these markets—you invested everything—good. Just stop looking.

Ask yourself the question, is what I have my money invested in diversified? Are you doing the strategy where maybe 50% of your money is in VOO or the Standard and Poor’s 500 index somewhere and the rest in individual stocks that you really like?

If that’s true, or all of your money, for instance, is in VOO, then just do that. If you're invested properly, you will be OK.

So, the real problem is not is the stock market going up or down and what are you going to do and things like that. It’s what are the people going to do who work for the federal government who have now just lost their jobs? Or people who haven't been told they've lost their jobs but they're on furlough and who knows if they're going to get back pay or not? What are they going to do?

And the question becomes: do they take money out of their TSP or their Roth IRAs? What do they do?

And here's just something I want to say to everybody. You know and I know when you have a 401(k) or a TSP or a 403(b), you can take a loan from that retirement account and use it for whatever you want and pay it back over a 5-year period of time in most cases. Please be very careful if you're on furlough right now and you don't know if you're going to get back pay or not, and especially if you think you're going to lose your job.

Do not take money via a loan from a TSP or any retirement plan like that that you may happen to have. Because if you lose your job, that money that you took out will be taxed to you as ordinary income this year. In fact, if it is this year that you took the money out, you will get a 10% penalty on it if you are not at least 55 years of age or older this year. I said 55. I did not mean to say 59 and a half.

Because there is a rule that says if you are 55 or older in the year you’ve lost your job or leave service, any money that you take from a 401(k), a 403(b), a TSP—not an IRA—but those three employer-sponsored plans, there is no 10% penalty. You are of age. But if you're under that age, you take a loan, now you no longer have a job. That money now will probably be due and payable within a month. It just depends on what they decide. And if you don't have it to pay, you're going to owe ordinary income tax on it and a 10% penalty.

But Suze, I don't have any money. I have to do something. Listen to me. Money that is in your employer-sponsored plan as well as an IRA, by the way—Roth or traditional in most cases—is protected against bankruptcy. If you don't have any money, you cannot pay your bills. It’s no fault of your own. You thought you had a solid job and all of a sudden, the government has done all of these shenanigans and now you don't have a job.

You may have to claim bankruptcy and therefore you need to protect what you have in a retirement account. I’d rather you charge up your credit cards to the max. Do whatever you can, but do not, and I repeat, do not touch money that is in your retirement accounts.

Now, there may be some of you federal employees that you know you are absolutely going to get back pay. Let's say you're an air traffic controller or whatever it is, and you're not getting paid right now, but you know that they are going to give you back pay because you're absolutely still working. What do you do?

If you happen to have a Roth IRA, never forget that you can take out any contributions that you originally put in without taxes or penalties whatsoever, regardless of how long the account has been open or your age. But also don't forget, you can do what's called a Roth IRA rollover—and you can do this with a regular IRA as well—where you withdraw money with the intention of putting it back within 60 days.

And you can only do this, by the way, once every 12 months. Therefore, if you are in a situation—listen closely to me now—and you really need money, and you know that as soon as this ends you're going to get this back pay, so then you'll have that money to put back in your Roth or your IRA within that 60-day period, it's something that you may need to take advantage of if there is just no money to pay your bills and you live paycheck to paycheck.

But if you do not get that money back within those 60 days, listen to me again: with your Roth IRA, you are only to take out that amount which you originally contributed. Because if something happens and you cannot put that money back—OK, it is still your money without taxes or penalties. If it is a traditional IRA, any money you take out, if you do not get it back within 60 days, you are going to pay ordinary income tax on that money plus a 10% penalty if you're not 59 and a half years of age or older.

So be very, very careful, everybody. Bottom line: the certainty of uncertainty. And until the uncertainty goes away, you should expect these markets to be absolutely going up, going down, and all over the place. But trust me, the uncertainty will go away. Many of these stocks—and our favorite stocks—will return. You will be happy that you either kept them or dollar cost averaged into them. And again, they could go 10% lower, 20% lower. They can go lower. But they could also go a lot higher over time.

All right, so that brings us to the end of this Suze School: The Certainty of Uncertainty. Two things though I do want to talk to you about as well. The one-year Treasury right now, as I said, is down to about 3.6%. Alliant Credit Union for new money—their one-year certificate is at 4.10. For amounts of $75,000 or more, it's at 4.15%. But that is for new money that you put in there. Again, go to myalliant.com and check it out.

Also, I want you to support me by subscribing to my YouTube channel so that you can be notified when a new video goes up. So you go to youtube.com/SuzeOrman—S-U-Z-E O-R-M-A-N—and subscribe. Got that?

So until Thursday when Miss Travis joins me again—can you believe I’m even lonely for her today? I better go find out what she’s doing. There’s only one thing that I want you to remember when it comes to your money, and it is this: Be certain, people. Be certain about what you do and don’t let others’ uncertainty get you off the track.

Remember the certainty of uncertainty. So people first. Be certain about your money. Then you can invest your money wisely. And then in the end, you’ll have money to buy things—hopefully things that you need. All right, until then, stay safe, secure, and healthy. Bye bye now.