Podcast Episode - The Greatest Financial Lesson of Life

For this Suze School, Suze explains why it’s so important to be prepared, financially, for the what-ifs of life.  Using the current government shutdown as an example, Suze talks about what you need to do to protect yourself so that if you experience something similar, you can still pay your bills. Then, Keith Fitz-Gerald stops by to talk with Suze about just what happened in the stock market this past week.

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Podcast Transcript:

Suze: November 9th, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast, as well as everybody smart enough to listen. Now, before we begin, I just want to say, I have a special guest coming up in this podcast, so you best stay tuned to find out who it is and what they have to tell you.

So today's Suze School is about the lessons of life.

Because you all have to look at what's been happening for approximately the last 40 days. Now, maybe it's not happening to you. But it is absolutely happening to people. And when something happens to people, you have to look at what's possible is happening to people, and could it ever happen to you, and what am I talking about?

The lessons of life that you think everything is going along great you have a solid job you have a paycheck coming in. You own a home.

You finally reached the American dream of owning a home. You have a car that probably you've leased cause you don't listen to the Women and Money podcast.

Maybe you're putting some money away in your retirement account, but really, you're counting on that paycheck every single week, every single bi-week, or every single month.

And you really believe because you have money coming in to pay the bills, even though maybe you have a little bit of credit card debt, that you are just fine and you can keep going just like that until...

Until something happens such as the federal government shuts down, and now you don't have a job currently, or you have to go to your job, but you're not getting paid for it.

And that means millions of people that are counting on you to go to your job, so that they can get an airplane ride to go where they want to go - is getting harder and harder. So what's happening to people that worked for the federal government, is starting to affect every single one of you and then there's those of you who don't have the ability to get stamps. Some people still call them food stamps. It's part of the SNAP program, but to get food to feed your family.

And now you don't know what to do, and then all of a sudden you find yourself having to go to a food bank, even if you've had a great job.

You're standing in line at a food bank.

And once again, we go back to the lessons of life, and what is the greatest lesson of life when it comes to your money, if you ask me.

It's to plan for the what ifs of life.

To plan today so that your tomorrow is always protected, and what is the greatest way you can protect yourself by that very simple eight to 12 month emergency fund.

But that's something like that. But Suze, I'll get to it. I first want to buy a house. I want to use my emergency fund for a down payment on a house. Oh, Suze, you know what.

I really just want to redecorate this or take my family on vacation, or all the priorities that you always put ahead of you having your emergency fund, and then you ask me.

Well, it's such a waste keeping that much money in a savings account or a money market fund. Don't you think I should invest it? And I'm like, no, you can't invest it. That's money that you need in case you can't pay your bills that must be paid. And then you don't listen to me. And then I get emails this week saying:

Suze, I didn't listen to you. I put my emergency fund in the stocks that you loved. I figured if you loved them they had to go straight up.

And I'm like, oh my God, which one did you do? And then I keep reading, and he goes, well, I decided to do all of it in Palantir, and just so all of you know, by the way, everybody, Palantir went from $203 a share down to about $169 a share in a day or two, and that's what he put all of his money into? OK. And guess what?

He was one of the ones who needed his emergency fund, his must pay account.

Because guess what? He was a fed worker and he lost his job.

So the lessons of life.

The lessons of life are investing in the known versus the unknown. What is the unknown? The unknown is, you don't know. Are you going to be in a car accident? Are you going to be told one day that you have a tumor in your neck, and who knows if you'll be able to even walk like I was told a few years ago.

All kinds of things can happen, and yet you never believe that it's going to happen to you. And when you don't believe that it's going to happen to you, chances are that's exactly when it is going to happen to you.

Because I've said so many times, money is the most important teacher of life. It will teach you more about yourself than anything you can learn in school, in a university, at work, in books. It will teach you how strong you are or how weak you are or how much you really want to survive, how much you really want to provide for your family.

It will teach you about your mistakes that you made, as you look at your credit card statements, going, why did I buy that? Why did I do that? And now I'm standing here in a food line.

It will teach you if you let it.

Because again you and your money are one.

So, if you don't have any money right now, you're one of those people who are living at this point, paycheck to paycheck.

What it's teaching you is that you haven't protected your tomorrows today when lessons of life come your way.

So, I've asked you, sometimes I've begged you. Now I'm seriously going to beg you.

That I don't care how much you want to go on a vacation or you want a massage or you want to do your nails every week or whatever it may be, you have got to make your number one priority. - forget the stocks forget whatever - you have got to make it your number one priority to have an eight to 12 month emergency fund.

You should call it your must pay fund, cause the money in there are for the bills you must pay month in and month out.

When you get an email from somebody that says, Suze,

I've been told that if I don't pay my rent next week I'm going to be evicted. Can you help me with anything to think about what I can do?

What do you tell somebody like that? Can you just try to put yourself for a second in my place?

A woman who has spent 40 years of her life trying to make sure that every single one of you is protected, that every single one of you is getting the absolute best advice so that you can make your money, make more money, so that you can take care of yourself if something like this happens when 2008 came along, millions of you were able to make it through because you listened. You took it to heart.

And so many more millions of you went, no, no, that's all right, it'll never happen to me. I'll never be in that situation. I'll always be able to work and get a paycheck.

But the lessons of life.

I want you right now to take a vow.

To take a vow that you will no longer be so naive to think nothing can ever happen to you, that you don't have to plan, you don't have to go, well, what if you know what would happen.

If what if came about, so I want you all to take out a piece of paper and pencil. Oh, you can use a pen if you want. Go on.

And I want you to write down everything that you're vulnerable when it comes to your money. If you lost your job or you were in an accident or you got ill or something happened to you, how long could you go and pay your must pay bills? Do you have at least eight to 12 months in a must pay account so that you would be OK?

Answer that question honestly, and if the answer to that is yes, great, but if you answer that question... one month or two months, then what are you waiting for and I know, I know.

You're all saying, Suze, I can't afford to save any money right now. I can't do it because if I do, I can't even really pay my bills. Everything I'm making, I use to pay my bills. Here's the question at hand then and answer this What happens when you no longer have a paycheck coming in? How are you going to pay those exact same bills?

And whether or not it's because of a shutdown or you've lost your job or you were injured, what if now you're retired?

And all of a sudden you don't have a paycheck coming in, but you never bothered to save, you never bothered to put money in a Roth IRA or a Roth retirement account because you were using every penny you had to pay your bills.

Then you'll say, well, what do you want me to do, Suze? Then get another job or cut down on your expenses. You have to possibly then earn more and save more.

Or you have to earn more and spend less.

So even if it were just where you were able to find $100 a month, well, great, then take advantage of the Ultimate Opportunity Savings Account with the Alliant Credit Union. You put $100 a month in, they give you 3.10% interest. You do that every month for 12 months, they give you $100. That's like a 16% return on your money, and you might not think that's a lot, but it's a whole lot when you don't have anything.

Which is why I created that account. It was to help all of you where every single penny mattered.

And hey, you can't leave it in there. Don't, I don't care. Now, this is not an ad for you to do that, but it's a possibility where you maybe could start.

So all right.

The lessons of life. Please just think about it, everybody. Think about it. Look at what you wrote down. Look at the excuses for why you feel like you can't do it.

And then understand in life, there is not an excuse strong enough to keep you from being who you are meant to be, so stop making excuses, all right.

Now, in the last half of this podcast, we need to address what is going on in the stock market, because I am sure many of you are, my God, look at Palantir, look at IONQ, look at these stocks, look at what's happening. Why is it happening? What should I do?

So, to that end, I thought you might enjoy if somebody who most of you listen to now, Keith Fitz-Gerald — you know Keith — joins us. That's right, I'm gonna in a second invite Keith onto this podcast, but for those of you who don't know Keith, this is what I want to say.

For 40 years Keith has been absolutely at the forefront of investing. Working for the major companies. Working everywhere now. If you ever turn on any channel on TV, oh, you will see him every single morning telling people what they should buy, what he thinks is going to happen. He writes the Five with Fitz, which is absolutely free, which so many of you listen to. I could go on and on about Keith's resume.

But here's what I really want to say.

I love listening to Keith. I love talking to him, and we talk almost every single day. Now. I don't always agree with him.

I don't always feel like, no, I'm not buying Tesla. I don't care what Keith says. I'm not doing it.

But overall I do not know one person who is a more astute and brighter not only investor but somebody who really understands how Wall Street works in a way that really none of us have the ability to do so because we never worked in the places and know the people that he knows.

So are you all ready?

Suze: Welcome Keith to the Women and Money podcast. Good morning. How are you doing today?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Good morning, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. We're out here on the west coast. It's cold. It's wintry, but you're obviously bright and sunny...

Suze: Kinda, kinda, and all, everybody, just so you know, I like to call Keith "Fritzy." That's my nickname for him, "Fritzy." So Fritzy, I have a question for you, and I'm sure many of the listeners are just freaked given what happened in the last week. Are the markets going up? Are they going down? And what is happening to our absolute favorite stock of all time? And all of you know.

We have been talking about Palantir forever. It went as high as 200 something, like, what was it, 203, 204, right in there, all the way down.

In a matter of a day or two after it announced record earnings, everybody, which usually causes a stock to go up, it went down all the way at one point to 169. So then you write me and you say, Suze, what's happening? Should I sell? Oh my God.

So given that it was Keith who recommended Palantir at 7. Many of you have tremendous profits in it still. Should you keep it? Should you save it? Should you buy more? And the real question is to you, Keith, why did this happen? Go for it, boyfriend.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: All right, so everybody hang with me, grab a stiff drink or a fresh lemonade, whatever you need, because it gets a little technical.

Suze: Keith, my people do not drink.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: OK. Well, good. Well, let's grab some lemonade and some punch.

Suze: Maybe they do. I just don't think they drink this early in the morning, but I don't know if Hoda can drink this early in the morning on TV. I guess they can too as well. But anyway, that's OK. Go on.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: OK, so one of the things that people don't understand — we all talk about investing like this, just the specific stocks — but behind the scenes, Susie, as you know, there is this massive orchestrated structure that is combined with big money traders, fast money traders, the slow investing guys, the regulators, the leverage bankers, and so on.

Right? It's like watching an episode of The Little Rascals back in the day. You don't know what Spanky's up to any more than you know what the rest of the gang's doing, right? They're just gonna go all over the place.

And in this instance, you had a gentleman named Michael Burry who was famous for something called The Big Short back in the day. This was in 2007, 2008 when the global mortgage crisis crashed.

Now he made headlines for saying, hey, I think this is gonna be bad news, and he shorted the markets and made a gazillion dollars. Well, he did it...

Suze: Just out of curiosity, do you feel like he caused the markets to crash back then?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: No, I do not feel like he caused the market to crash back then. This time around, and speaking personally, I have a very hard time believing that what he has done is not deliberate.

When you are a big trader like this, you have to file something called a 13F, which discloses your positions. And so if everybody's listening out there, imagine going to the grocery store because you intend to buy all the inventory. You'd obviously have to tell the grocery store you intended to do that so the grocery store could reload and not mess up everybody else who's intending to go shopping that day.

Suze: OK, now you gotta really speak slowly for everybody because I know you're really familiar with all of this, but it's when you start mentioning and it's technical. This is all brand new, really brand new for the listeners. So you know...

Keith Fitz-Gerald: I feel like... I feel like Joe Pesci's character in the Lethal Weapon series. OK, OK, OK, OK...

I get so excited about this stuff because Suze, one of the things that — as scary as this is, right, I mean just to deviate for a split second — one of the things as scary as this is...

Whenever this kind of stuff happens, it is an amazing opportunity for smart investors who can see through the storm, right? My grandfather used to say the night is always darkest before the sun rises.

And in a situation like this, that's what we're dealing with behind the scenes, because you have this big money trader, Michael Burry, who makes headlines because he's betting Palantir is the world's biggest bubble.

And oh my goodness, isn't this terrible. And the media...

Suze: Now wait, wait, wait, stop for a second. How much do you think he, he put on that trade?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: I don't know for certain, but I'm hearing in the billions.

Suze: Alright, billions. So before Palantir reports earnings, before anything comes out, he goes, and what does he do?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: OK, so before it's coming in, the stock is running to new highs. This is like a movie — the stock is running to new highs — and he's assembling what's called puts or a short position. It's a bet the stock's gonna go down.

Now he's done this every year and been wrong many, many times. Tesla was gonna fail. The S&P was gonna crash. There was gonna be nuts. So you gotta take stuff like this with a big grain of salt, like a really big grain of salt.

But what makes it unique in this situation is normally he would file his 13F's mid-November. Instead, he chose to file them on the day that Palantir was going to report record earnings on that day.

Suze: Now wait a minute, wait a minute again, once again, explain to people what is a 13F and why did he have to even fill it out?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Because he's a big investor and he can be deemed to move the markets and when he's holding a material position, his fund has to declare to the regulators that they've assembled this position.

Suze: All right, so wait again, he has an actual fund, that he invests the money of this fund. How big do you think his fund is?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: I don't know that number off the top of my head, but it's, it's sizable.

Suze: All right, so billions, is that correct?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: It's enough to make a difference.

Suze: All right. And so when you are the manager of a fund. And you're about to make an investment that could absolutely move the market. You have to file this form, correct?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: That's correct.

Suze: All right, now, everybody, do you got that? You might wanna write this down because this is a tremendous education of what goes on behind the scenes. So you have to understand it's not always like you think, and that's why we're so privileged to have Mr. Fitz with us. All right, go on, Fitzy.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: OK, so here's the setup. He's got all of this money bet that the company is gonna go down. He tells the government, hey, you know what? I've bet all this money the company is gonna go down, and he does it on the very same day that Palantir is going to hit new highs, on the very same day that it is going to report record earnings, on the very same day when there are all kinds of positive new partnerships being announced, incredible revenues and profits.

Suze: Wait, wait, wait, now stop again. Why does it matter that he did that on that particular day?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: This is where I think it goes from random to deliberate, and this is just my opinion, just speculation. I don't want to get sued. I don't know for a fact.

Suze: I don't know. I listened to you and you've never been wrong yet, but go on.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Well, thank you, thank you. Here we go.

He filed this paperwork on the very same day all of the good news was gonna come out, and he knew full well in my humble opinion that the media would take that story hook, line and sinker, and they would run with it globally. Oh my God, Michael Burry, bets Palantir is gonna crash.

And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. Fear took over instantly. The big algorithms, which are also now involved, started selling faster than humans could keep up, and the next thing you know, the stock kaboom!

Suze: Wait, stop one more second. Tell everybody what an algorithm is.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Sure, so when you're a trader of that size, when you're, you know, well beyond just an individual investor like we are, right, when you're a trader moving hundreds of millions of dollars at the touch of a button, you have these tremendous sophisticated computer programs who do your bidding for you.

And they trade so fast, a human can't keep up. Now, all of the computers talk to other computers on Wall Street, and when one computer says sell, the rest of them wanna race to the bottom. They all wanna jump on board and sell as fast as they can because nobody wants to be holding the hot potato, and prices fall.

Suze: Yeah, you know, now, let's just put a pin in all that for one second. Everybody, I just want to tell you how I know this is true.

So here I am, and all of a sudden I start getting texts from my young friends. When I say young, about 23, 27, 28, that I had all of them. I told them all about Palantir, all right? And all of a sudden that morning they go, Suze, Suze, have you seen what Michael Burry says? We gotta sell, we gotta sell. He thinks it's gonna go down, he's gonna short it. Let's sell.

And of course I said, you can sell if you want to pay taxes on it, but it's gonna go down and probably go right back up, so be a fool if you want to be. So, all right, go on now.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: What happens is these computers now, when they see one big what's called a sell program, when they see one big sell program come online, then all the other computers say, oh man, we should sell. So this is like the rumor mill on steroids. There's no human involvement and the computers just sell, sell, sell, sell, and the price just drops like a rock, and that's what happened.

So behind the scenes, you and I are investing in the company because it's a great stock. The computers don't care about that. The computers are fighting with other computers to make sure they're not left with the last potato on the shelf.

Suze: All right, one last thing, why don't they take into consideration that Palantir came out with record earnings that day? It would be like if Michael hadn't done that, the stock would have been like, oh my God, it exceeded everybody's expectations. How can it keep doing this? Oh my God, everybody didn't think it was gonna be profitable, and it's more profitable than it ever was. Why do they not pay attention to that?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Well, that raises a very interesting question and one that does not get talked about nearly enough, but should, in my opinion.

The computers, when you're a professional money manager, particularly at scale, meaning billions of dollars, you have to keep your money moving 24/7 all the time. Now, individual investors actually have the edge here.

And they have the edge for reasons that Suze's been telling you about for years. You can logically, calmly, coolly, and collectively buy into great stocks when you want to. You can dollar cost average into great stocks, but the big money doesn't have that option.

And so what tends to happen is they accelerate time. So that's the one thing you and I can't control, but they can, and so the computers pile in instantly. So in other words, a movie that used to take you and me an hour and a half to watch, they'll watch, because they're computers, in 20 seconds.

And the battle's over before you're even in it. And the trick as an individual investor is not to fall for it. Don't fall for their shtick. Don't fall for the tricks. Don't get sucked into the hype because the hype is what they're trying to get you to suck into. That's not your advantage. It's theirs.

Suze: All right, so wait, hold on one more second there. So everybody, here's what you have to understand about everything Keith just said.

They come out, whether it's Michael or whoever, they place a huge bet that the stock is going to go down, and if the stock goes down, they make a fortune. To make sure that it's going to go down or in the hopes that it's going to go down, they start these rumor mills, which is why my younger friends all freaked out.

And they wanted to sell because when the headlines are, Michael Burry is betting Palantir is gonna go down, it starts this frenzy where all of you as well as the computers start to sell. The more it goes down, the more of a fortune Michael makes. But he only does it up to a certain point.

And then it stops, right, Keith?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: That's correct. And for all we know, he may even already be out of the deal, having collected his profits.

Suze: And his profits, everybody, they weren't just a million dollars. They could have been seriously a billion dollars, a few hundred million dollars that he made simply because he started a rumor. That's just that simple.

So here we are. Now if you're advising people, if you're gonna just give your opinion — because we don't know their individual situations, we don't know what they should be investing in, what they shouldn't — but it's just talking about the stock Palantir. It went all the way down to about 169. As we're talking, it closed on Friday, I think at 177. It's now in the aftermarkets, it's been trading around 180. What are you doing? Are you buying more?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Yes, I am buying more. I bought more all the way down and I'm gonna buy more all the way back up. I think it's going to reclaim 200 and a few years from now it'll be three to five times higher than it is today.

Suze: All right, now tell everybody what that means. So you think it's gonna go back up to 200 probably shortly, even before the end of this year, correct?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: That is my expectation. Yes.

Suze: All right, then from there over the next three years it could go to 600, correct?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Correct, correct, or even higher.

Suze: Or higher. So are all of you now understanding, why we always talk about dollar cost averaging, we call it keeping some powder dry, because when something blows up like this, you want to have the money to go back in and take advantage of what just happened because a good stock is a good stock, is a good stock.

And just because it goes down does not mean it's a bad stock. It's either caught in a bad situation or maybe the economy, but when a stock goes down, that's a great stock, like Palantir earning money in the forefront of the future of what's going on — that's your ticket to buy something that has gone on serious sale when it already bypassed you by going up to 200.

Now, I just have to say this about Keith. Keith first talked about Palantir at 7.

And I remember him saying, oh, one day it'll go to 85. And everybody made fun of him. They went, yeah, like, right.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Yes, they did. Yes, they did.

Suze: And then all of a sudden it's at $85. Then what does he say? He doesn't say it's going to go to $90 or $95. He goes on national television and he tells everybody over and over, I think this is a $200 stock.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: And they made fun of me again.

Suze: They did more than make fun of you, Fitzy. They were like, he's an idiot. Are you crazy? This can't happen. And then all of a sudden the stock is all the way up at 2 something when Mr., I call him NB, right, Michael Burry, right, you know, comes in and does his shenanigans.

Suze: So, I just wanted all of you to have a brief, brief lesson on what happened with one stock. Keith, overall, since we're almost out of time here, right, overall, what do you think the market's doing?

What are your particular favorite stocks still, because a lot of people still have IONQ. Do you still love it?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Oh my goodness, this is another stock on the forefront of our future. Yes, you bet I do.

Suze: All right, so we have Palantir, IONQ. You still love Nvidia.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Nvidia is still king of the ball, queen of the ball, whatever expression you want to use. It's at the party and gonna dance for a long time.

Suze: All right, we won't talk about Tesla because we have a difference in opinion there.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Well, even if we have a difference in opinion, right, forget about Tesla, for example, but think about all the technologies that it's involved in that other companies besides Tesla are working in — robotics, vision, health, neural networks. So if you can't get past Tesla that's OK. You and I will always probably butt heads on that one, but the technology itself with all these other companies that are involved is still changing our world, and that's an infestable opportunity that we will never again see in our lifetimes.

Suze: All right, so you heard it here on the Women and Money podcast. Hopefully Keith will be kind enough to join us again in the future when things like last week happened, because last week was a phenomenon that all of you need to learn about. And so therefore, now you've learned it.

So here's the bottom line. Keith, do you know how we end the podcast? Do you know my last sayings?

Keith Fitz-Gerald: Considerably more, more style than I do, so I'm gonna let you finish.

Suze: All right, so everybody, there's only one thing that both of us want you to remember when it comes to your money, and it is this: People first, then money, then things.

Keith, thank you from the bottom of my heart, Fitzy.

Keith Fitz-Gerald: It's an honor. Thank you everyone.

Suze: Right now all of you stay safe, stay healthy, stay secure, and stay smart. See you soon. Bye bye.