Podcast Episode - Suze School: Be Patient, Hopeful and Realistic

In this Suze School, Suze offers her reflections on why the markets did what they did this past week, what the effects of the new tariffs are and why we need to have hope, but stay grounded and just what our job in life is.

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Podcast Transcript:

April 27th, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast. I'm bac.

Anyway, it's Suze O here, and today is Suze School. Now I have a little laryngitis, but I think you can deal with that. Listen, so much has happened over this past week. It's not even funny.

So the first part of Suze school, we have to ask and answer why did the market last week after being obliterated the weeks before that, why last week did it go up? Can any of you answer that question?

Well, let me see if I can try here. It's because of one word.

And that word is hope.

Hope. Now I know I have said to you many times hope is not a financial plan.

Hope is very temporary, so the hope that we experienced last week may also be temporary, which is why on the Women and Money community app I've been telling you all to still let's just be a little bit conservative. So the first question that we are going to answer is what happened? Why were we hopeful last week? Who was hopeful? What happened, Suze?

What happened was very simple.

It was stated by President Trump, who had been stating he wanted Jay Powell fired. He wanted him out of there, blah blah blah blah, even though legally he couldn't do that. He kept saying it over and over again for some reason, and I don't know why. I think many of his advisory staff was like, You have to change this. You can't do this. We are really going to be in trouble here.

And all of a sudden you hear President Trump say I'm not going to fire Jay Powell, I wished he would lower interest rates, but I'm not going to fire him.

Well, now that's interesting. The market started to feel more hopeful. Well, the truth of the matter is, the market doesn't feel anything. It is the people that invest in the stocks in the market that started to feel hopeful.

Plus, certain people in the administration kept saying we're going to have a deal. We've been talking to China. Everything's gonna be OK. We're gonna have a deal and on and on and on.

So prior to last week this selling in my opinion was done with what? All machine selling.

So that if the machinery behind the market that was already programmed didn't like certain things, sell, sell, sell, sell. No emotions there, all programmed in.

But last week the buying was all by individuals, which is great. Because there was hope back and everybody wanted to come back in the market, like think about it, didn't you?

Many of you who own Palantir, for instance, which is probably at this point in time the majority of you, didn't you feel like, oh, I got to buy more. It's going up from 65 $75. It's going up every day now, and it actually ended Friday at $112 a share again just down $13 from $125 a share, which was its all-time high.

But when the machines were selling, it took it down all the way to 75 in the high 60s, and here we are now all the way back because people feel hopeful again.

So that's good, but as I said, hope can be temporary. Now we have been being told deals are coming. We're speaking to China and this and that, but no deals have been announced yet.

And we are very, very close in my opinion that if a deal is not announced within the next week, this coming week even, we could very well see these markets turn around and go back down.

And why do I say that a deal is so important?

It's because people are stopping to spend money, order things, everything, because they don't know what they're going to be paying for it. So let me just give you an idea what also is happening and think if this is true for your own personal situation.

Have you not found, especially since I told you before this all started, really, cut back, stop spending, save money. I told all of you that.

Haven't you found that everybody, even your friends that maybe don't listen to me? Why don't they, by the way, what is wrong with them anyway?

You're stopping spending money. People aren't going out to eat as much. They're cutting down on how many times they get their nails done, their hair done. Everything is coming way, way down in terms of what households are actually spending.

When households start to spend less, the companies, the restaurants, the businesses, everybody, they start to cut back as well on all their items that they sell to all of you. They cut back on how much they are buying.

When they cut back on how much they are buying, it affects everybody and everything, and that is exactly what is going on, but time is running out now. Why do I say this? Maybe you can relate to it if I use the gold box that I used to sell um HSN and QVC.

Maybe I can use that example and you'll understand it. Now, first of all, all of you are still asking me to bring that box back. Waterproof, fireproof, everything greatest box and tool I ever created.

But I can't bring it back cause I don't know what it would cost me to bring it back cause I don't know what the tariffs are. Let me tell you exactly how it worked.

I knew that if I was going to be on QVC and HSN X amount of months from now.

Number one, I had to place the order. I had to figure out how long would it take them to produce the order.

And I needed to know exactly with shipping what it was going to cost me to get that order on the boat. Have the boat crossed the ocean, have the trucks pick it up when it arrived.

How long would the trucks take to get to QVC? How long would it take to unpack it, quality test it, have it all ready to go?

At the exact price that was determined months before so that QVC could determine what they were going to charge all of you to buy this item, just that simple. That time period usually was about, I hate to tell you, 6 to 8 months before you saw it on the air. So a typical order for us could be 200,000 boxes.

That was a multi-million dollar order that we had a place and be responsible for. Can you imagine locking in everything, having it all ready to go, about to be put on the boat, and all of a sudden China, which is where all this was made, is hit with a 154% tariff.

Imagine that all of a sudden everything we did and we priced doesn't work anymore so it's almost easier not to even do it cause with that 154% tariff everybody's going to lose money big time.

However, it gets to QVC. There's nothing we can do about it. What that means is QVC isn't going to eat that 154% increase.

They're gonna pass it down to you, so an item that might have cost, let's just say $50 is probably going to be close to $100.

Tariffs mean everybody, you pay more money, but because nobody knows what those tariffs are going to be nobody knows if it's even worth it to pay em.

The cargo ships that are coming over from China have decided to bypass the United States of America. They're not even stopping here any more. And what does that mean to you?

Given the time lag that's needed to fill the shelves everywhere in Walmart, in Target, in everywhere, they need time, and that is why I say time is running out.

Cause you are seeing right now that cargo ships that are coming over are coming over only 40% full. That's it. That means 60% has already been items that nobody's ordering more in terms of the distributors. It not only affects that, it affects the trucking companies.

I want to take you back for a second here and see if you remember COVID.

And remember when everything shut down. The big problem was there were no trucks to unload the ships that were coming in to get the items to everybody. And why is that? It's cause everything had come to a standstill. Trucks piled up, everything just went nuts.

This machine in the United States of America is such a well-oiled machine that from shipping to trucking to just everything works perfectly as long as there isn't a screw up. When there is a screw up to the magnitude that we are seeing right now we're shipping and everything, it's going to affect what it costs you. It's going to affect your habits.

And if that isn't solved sooner than later, all I'm saying is don't be surprised if you start seeing empty shelves and things like that, even for Christmas, a major toy factory has cut down their stuffed animal order by 20 to 30%.

So I just want you to be schooled on the reality of really what is going on here. It is more than the stocks went up one day and the stocks are going up another day and and you're all feeling good again.

You need to hear that deals have been made. People continue to feel hopeful and that everything starts running again. And if we don't hear that, we'll see what happens next.

Over this time that the market has gone up and down and up and down, I decided, all right, let's see where I am. KT is like, Suze, how much money have we lost? You know, she's just on me about that all the time. So what was so strange is that when I got a final total of everything, and this was before the last 4 days of it going up last week, we were actually up in our investments rather than down.

Now we're seriously up because the markets went up 4 days. Why am I telling you that? I'm telling you that because the key to investing is diversification.

It's not having all your money in just one stock or the stock market or all your money in the bond market or all your money in gold or bitcoin or real estate. It's about you sitting down and really looking at do you have true diversification.

Because it's important when you do and it's in the right areas and everything, your hit will not be as hard as if everything is in the bond market, everything is in stocks, and so on and so forth. So one of your assignments on this Suze School is, can you just sit down and really look at where your investments are.

Do you have diversification and do you not? Just the same.

Next Bitcoin. Now I did a thing on the Women and Money community app, and I told you what I thought about Bitcoin, and I'm still liking Bitcoin. If you want to know what I think about it, go to the Women and Money Community app, download it at Apple Apps or Google Play. Look for that, and you'll see, OK.

You have to understand that when I say invest in Bitcoin, it is for only those people who, whatever you are investing in Bitcoin, you can afford to lose. Don't think as many of you wrote on the app. Does that mean Suze wants me to invest more money in Bitcoin? So you were confused and maybe I confused you by what I posted on the wall.

But bottom line, I do think Bitcoin could be a part of everybody's portfolio, not the actual commodity itself, although that is the cheapest way to do it. However, I still like the ETF by the symbol I B I T. I just like them. I think they're the safest, but only for people who can afford to lose whatever you are putting into Bitcoin.

Gold simple GLD has been performing very, very well. Also, the symbol GOLD, which was Barrett Mines and everything, fine too as well, pays a dividend, but for a small portion of your money if you're so inclined.

But I don't want you, regardless of what happened these last 4 days, to all of a sudden go 100% back into the market. I want you to go little by little.

As we always were doing, nothing has changed. Do I think it's possible that all through the remaining of this year we're going to see ups, downs, ups, downs. Oh, you bet I do. Let's just stay conservative that way. That's all I'm asking of you. Next, don't try to get tricky. I was going to get tricky, and if I had gotten tricky, it would have been one of the biggest mistakes I made. Let me tell you why.

I was watching Palantir, which I have a lot of everybody, and you would imagine that I have a lot of it. Why? Because I started to accumulate at 7 following Keith Fitzgerald recommendation, by the way, that was his brainchild that was not mine.

And over all of that time, it was easy to accumulate a lot of shares at $7 a share.

And we have therefore a tremendous amount of gain. Think about it. My average cost in Palantir is $20 a share because I kept buying it as it was going up.

And then I realized, oh, Suze, you have enough in Palantir. Let's move on to another stock. And I was so thrilled as I watched Palantir go up 100 points in profit on a number of shares. I thought I would be so smart here, and I decided at the beginning of last week maybe I should sell some of my Palantir.

Take the gain and offset it with some of the losses that I had and then buy Palantir back.

At my new cost basis of $100 a share or whatever it would be versus $20 are you following me on this? If I had done that, I don't think I would have been able to get back into Palantir fast enough.

And I probably would have left money on the table. So what did I learn from that? When you have a stock that is really going, it's a great stock. Don't get tricky with it. I want you to keep it long term. Many of the stocks that we talk about.

They aren't for trading. They are to see where are they going to be 2 years from now, 3 years from now, 5 years from now. You may all feel very smart if you sold Paintier at its top of 125, and then it went down, and you probably wanted it to stay down because you wanted to be right, and now it's back up at 112, 113, but in the long run we did not buy Palantir to go to 125.

We bought Palantir over the years to go to 250, 400 to split to do everything the great stocks have done.

So just write that down. Once you buy a stock, it's a great stock. It, well, I don't care whether it goes up, down or not, just keep dollar cost averaging into it.

And you'll be surprised 2 or 3 years from now how much that is worth.

So bottom line.

What do I want you to get from the Suze School?

I want you to get patience. I want you to stop being freaked out. I want you, if you have good quality stocks, stop watching television. Stop looking at them. Just know that they're good quality and hey, if anything were to happen, you would hear about it here on the podcast. Trust me on that one.

So I want you to be patient, and I want you to be hopeful, but I also want you to be realistic.

You will never call the bottom of a stock or the stock market, and actually you will never truthfully sell at the top.

You might sell at the top for a month, 2 or 3, but not long run.

So that's Suze School for today. I do though want to say a few things. Number one, yesterday, what an incredible service for Pope Francis. What an incredible Pope who really embraced the world and the world's people.

No matter who they were, what color they were, how rich or poor they were, he embraced the goodness of people.

And that really is our job in life. It is to embrace the goodness of people.

You know, sometimes people say to me, Suze, what do you do?

And I go, well, most people think I'm the money lady.

But what I really do is I meet the needs of the people and the places and the times around me, and I offer those services to God.

I want you to just think about that.

We are a community here. I hope we are a community that loves one another, wants to help one another, and that we are here for more than just what stock to buy, what to do. I hope we are here to always look within to see why we are doing without. I hope we are here so that we can become as strong as we are meant to be.

So that we can own the power to control our destiny.

So that we know our self-worth, for when you know your self worth, your net worth will absolutely increase, and we're here to help each other always stand in the truth. So until Thursday when Miss Travis joins us back here again and Ask KT and Suze anything.

All the things that I just said, that's what I want you to remember. I want you to remember that your job in life is to meet the needs of the people and the places and the times around you.

And offer those services to God. See you Thursday, everybody. Bye bye.