Podcast Episode - Highlights from: Look For Change
September 17, 2023
Listen to Podcast Episode:
For today’s Suze School, we’re revisiting an episode where Suze looks at how change and what happens in the world, affect how you invest and what you invest in.
Podcast Transcript:
00:00:00
Intro: OK, Suze, are you ready for today's podcast? Oh,
00:00:02
Intro: you bet I am cause I'm unstoppable. (Music)
00:00:28
Robert: September 17th, 2023. Hi, everybody. This is Suze's producer, Robert here and welcome to the Women and Money podcast and everyone smart enough to listen. So Suze and KT are back. They're safe here in the United States after their adventures in Italy and Spain. But today I'm going to invoke one of my responsibilities as producer
00:00:52
Robert: and that's giving Suze a few extra days off before we produce a new episode. I can tell you that Susie and KT will be back this Thursday for an Ask KT and Suze Anything podcast and I'm sure they will have wonderful highlights from their journey. Now, speaking of highlights
00:01:12
Robert: today, we're gonna hear part of an episode that we published in June called Look For Change. We hope you enjoy.
00:01:19
Suze: All right, it is Suze School today and the topic of Susie's school today is change.
00:01:28
Suze: How does change and what happens in the world affect how you invest and what you invest in. It was 1980 I first became a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch and I was so proud to be a stockbroker
00:01:48
Suze: and to be a stockbroker, you have to study and get your series seven exam and know everything about the economy and all of these things so that you really know how to invest people's money. Theoretically speaking, because learning about it and doing it is a whole another thing. However,
00:02:11
Suze: during that time, I was the only woman stockbroker, most of the other 105 stockbrokers, all male
00:02:21
Suze: we're so much older than me. It's not even funny.
00:02:27
Suze: And
00:02:28
Suze: I wanted to learn, I would always go to them and say, can you teach me this? What about this? What does this mean? And they would answer? And we had a great relationship.
00:02:41
Suze: But I also had an older brother who was brilliant and he still is. And he would say to me, Susie, you need to learn how to do a technique called covered call writing.
00:03:27
Suze: And if you could do that, you can make yourself and your clients a lot of money. And I said, well, Bobby, what's that about? And he said, Suze, it's about options. Options can be speculative, Suze. But they can also be used to be very conservative and I'm doing it, Suze, and I'm making a good 20% every few months on my money.
00:03:28
Suze: But you should go to the brokers and learn about it from them
00:03:34
Suze: And I'll never forget being so excited to go in the next day. And I went up to what I thought was the top broker at the time. And
00:03:44
Suze: I said to him, can you teach me about covered call writing? And he said to me, oh, please, Suze, you don't want to learn about that.
00:03:53
Suze: Options will never catch on.
00:03:56
Suze: They're just something they will come and they will go. So don't waste your time learning about them.
00:04:02
Suze: So I went to another broker thinking all right, he just doesn't like them one after another refused to acknowledge that this possibly could be an investment strategy that really would take hold and is something that they should learn about.
00:04:21
Suze: And to this day, it's still around, options are still around. You can use them in many different ways to make serious sums of money and possibly lose serious sums if you also don't know what you're doing with them
00:04:36
Suze: Maybe one day, I'll give a master class on covered call writing because it's a fabulous thing to do in markets that are steady or that are going down. But anyway, back to the point.
00:04:53
Suze: So there were a group of financial advisers that just never kept up with things as things were changing.
00:05:03
Suze: And then the younger ones came in and they kept up with everything and they were able to use everything that was new.
00:05:12
Suze: And I think about this because I think about today
00:05:17
Suze: how fast everything is still changing when it comes to investing.
00:05:26
Suze: I mean, with the aid of technology and robotic investing and all these things and being able to buy and sell with the push of a button and on and on investing has taken on a very, very different type of understanding as to how it really works. Now, obviously it still works with stocks going up, stocks going down.
00:05:56
Suze: But the velocity and certain other things have absolutely changed. A lot of the indicators that we used to use years ago to indicate are the markets going up? Are the markets going down, what's going to happen?
00:06:13
Suze: So even I need to start thinking maybe the vics that I've talked to all of you about maybe it's not accurate anymore because of how it works now. So there are other things we need to look at when making decisions as to where should we be investing, how should we be investing, what should we be doing?
00:06:39
Suze: But
00:06:40
Suze: we have to pay attention to change.
00:06:45
Suze: What's interesting is that many of you are paying attention to change.
00:06:51
Suze: You're thinking for instance, that everything's going to become electrified, we're gonna have electric cars, we're not gonna need gasoline anymore and on and on and on.
00:07:06
Suze: However, sometimes change happens very, very fast
00:07:11
Suze: and sometimes change happens very, very slowly.
00:07:17
Suze: And when it comes to the United States of America and or for instance, the global economy,
00:07:28
Suze: it's very, very slow, when it comes to energy.
00:07:34
Suze: It has now been stated by many that it will be the year 2050 by then only 50%
00:07:45
Suze: of the global markets will be electrified. So what that means to you is don't think that energy oil, that those things are going away. Don't think it because it's not true. At least not yet.
00:08:06
Suze: So when I talk to you about energy and stocks such as PXD and Devon and everything and the dividends that they pay. And a lot of you think, oh, why would we be investing in that?
00:08:21
Suze: It's not going away. Now, with that said, I will be the first one to tell you that I understand the ramifications that it has on the world and the climate. I get that everybody, but I also get that
00:08:39
Suze: it also can be a very wise investment and then you can take the money and do whatever you want with it to possibly help the world. But whether you invest in it or not, it's not going to be going away that soon.
00:08:56
Suze: Change can also happen when it comes to real estate based on its location. Now, I know a lot of you love to invest in real estate.
00:09:09
Suze: You're gonna buy this home and a second home and you're going to buy real estate because you know, real estate always goes up or so you think,
00:09:20
Suze: and I just want to tell you again another little story here, which is I lived in the Bay Area around San Francisco starting in 1973. And I lived there for over 20 some odd years. I lived there into the mid two thousands. Ok. And
00:09:44
Suze: I loved it. KT and I had this fabulous house. It was on Broderick. We loved it. We would walk out the door and in a few blocks we'd be walking on Chrissy Fields and we could go out to eat with just walking. We loved it.
00:10:00
Suze: And then I started to notice things started to change. And I said to KT - KT, I really want to sell this house. It's time for us to make a change and for us to leave.
00:10:18
Suze: And so we sold it right away, sold in about a week and we left.
00:10:23
Suze: Now, this was a number of years ago.
00:10:26
Suze: And since that time
00:10:28
Suze: I have watched now San Francisco, one of the more beautiful cities in the world change
00:10:39
Suze: change, not geographically, the hills and the o it's all beautiful still,
00:10:46
Suze: but crime has taken over parts of San Francisco.
00:10:53
Suze: You have the main whole foods that was located there left, you have Nordstrom's left. These were stores that KT and I would shop at.
00:11:06
Suze: And just recently, one of the country's largest publicly traded REITs and REIT is a real estate investment trust. And that is how many people invest in real estate when they themselves don't want to own their own individual property.
00:11:30
Suze: So they invest in an REIT that REIT buys certain types of real estate, they make money, they get dividends and that's how they do it. But Park hotels and Resorts Inc., one of the country's largest publicly traded REITs
00:11:52
Suze: recently just stopped making payments on both of its 1921 room, Hilton Hotel in San Francisco in Union Square, everybody.
00:12:06
Suze: And it's 1000 room Park, 55 San Francisco properties, that's almost 3000 rooms
00:12:18
Suze: that they were making money on. They stopped making payments on both of those properties and they expect to remove them from their portfolio.
00:12:31
Suze: So many changes can happen,
00:12:36
Suze: which is why it's important for you to also watch the investments that you are making and where are they invested and what is going on? One change that is absolutely going to be happening here. Instead you have China that is continuing to develop their digital WAN their currency.
00:13:00
Suze: Now everybody else in the United States and everybody has seemed to back off on that, but China has not backed off.
00:13:09
Suze: And what that could mean in the future is tremendous differences for global trade
00:13:18
Suze: So I know that this isn't saying do this and do that. What this podcast is all about is that the change that has come over the years, the change that will continue to come and the change that might be right before your very eyes that you need to pay attention to when it comes to investing.
00:13:45
Suze: Now, one thing that you have to know,
00:13:50
Suze: people tend to be more pessimistic than optimistic.
00:13:56
Suze: They feel like, oh, yes, yes, everything's gonna come to an end. Nothing's gonna be ok. Therefore I shouldn't participate in it and they get totally negative and they don't get out of that stance.
00:14:11
Suze: What I've realized over all the years that I've been doing, this is your true nature is to be positive. Your true nature is to want things to go up more than you want them to go down.
00:14:29
Suze: And there are trillions of dollars right now on the sidelines waiting for something to do with it.
00:14:38
Suze: So my advice to all of you would be, it's important to continue to dollar cost average every single month, whether it's in
00:14:50
Suze: the Vanguard Total Stock Market index ETF or the Standard and Poors ETF or individual stocks, it's really, really important to be involved now and get your money to work that way for you as well. Obviously, when you have money that you want safe and sound
00:15:15
Suze: that you don't want anything to happen to,
00:15:18
Suze: then that's when you look at things like the Alliant Credit Union, 18 month certificate of deposit or treasury bills, bonds or notes, whatever it may be,
00:15:30
Suze: but you can't keep all of your money safe and sound. Some of your money has to go for dividends for growth and to absolutely give you better returns over the long run.
00:15:46
Suze: You know, recently I was looking on the wall and somebody said that I confuse them because they thought that I said, invest in dividends and take your dividends and don't reinvest them. You know, if you need income dividend, paying stocks are a fabulous way for you to get income. So you take your income there and let the stocks do what they're going to do. But if you don't need the income,
00:16:14
Suze: then you would reinvest those dividends in the stock.
00:16:20
Suze: So you can do both of the things that I've said, you can invest just for the dividend, or you could also invest for the dividend and put it back in the stock for compounding.
00:16:35
Suze: So let's just be clear on that.
00:16:40
Suze: So many of you are writing me and you want ideas, you want to know exactly what stock should you invest in, what should you do? You want to get more involved with your money? And I have a problem
00:16:56
Suze: and my problem is this,
00:17:00
Suze: I invest in the stock market and I don't think it's ethical if I invest and I own specific stocks and then I tell you to buy those stocks and that causes possibly the stocks to go up. There's kind of like a conflict there, you understand.
00:17:23
Suze: And so as much as I would love to tell you buy this stock, that stock, that stock, this stock and when I do tell you to buy something, it's because I usually would like to own it, but I don't own it simply So there's no conflict or if I did own it, then I sell it so that you can do whatever you want with it. Um, the one exception to that happens to be, by the way, Devon Energy and that's fine. I don't have a problem with that one
00:17:53
Suze: but to tell you about the other little stocks and the other little things that I like doing,
00:18:00
Suze: I can't legally do it.
00:18:03
Suze: So
00:18:05
Suze: there are people that I read all the time and that I really like and that I follow and have incredible ideas and there is a man by the name of Keith Fitz-Gerald. Right. So it's F I T Z hyphen Gerald G E R A L D
00:18:29
Suze: and he was one of the speakers again at the John Malden conference. That was just a little bit ago. However, I've been following Keith Fitzgerald for a long time and he does have a newsletter that he puts out, that's about $1500 a year.
00:18:52
Suze: So that's a little bit expensive. I think it's worth it. He doesn't even know by the way I'm talking about him right now. He has no idea. He doesn't even, probably even know I get his newsletter. Ok.
00:19:04
Suze: But he's good and he's been accurate and I like him. However, that's not why I'm telling you about him. He has something called Five (F-I-V-E) with Fitz F-I-T-Z and every morning he gives you about five ideas
00:19:31
Suze: that are relevant and it takes only about five minutes to read them all,
00:19:37
Suze: but it's absolutely free. Now, obviously he does this so that you get interested and then you decide to buy his newsletter, which some of you may decide to do in the future. But even if you never do it, the ideas that you will get in, some of his five ideas are well worth it.
00:20:04
Suze: They start to educate you and start you to think about things. So I just wanted to share that with all of you because I think his ideas are spot on.
00:20:19
Suze: And so that's part of my job here.
00:20:23
Suze: It's what can I bring to you that maybe will help those of you who want to be more adventurous than just exchange traded funds or whatever else we may talk about.
00:20:38
Suze: Now, there's nothing wrong with exchange traded funds. I'll tell you that much. You can make an absolute fortune over a long period of time. If you just keep dollar cost, averaging every single month and you do it month in and month out forever, you will be great. But a lot of you
00:20:57
Suze: wanna be a little bit more diversified in your own way and buy individual stocks and really go for things. So you might find that Keith Fitz hyphen Gerald may be able to help you do that just a little bit. All right, that's the end of this podcast. So
00:21:26
Suze: there's only one thing that I want you to say every single day
00:21:32
Suze: and you know, part of me wants to be cute here because you know me, I want to say change, look for change,
00:21:39
Suze: look for ways that you don't want to change. But understand that change is a part of all of our lives and it will help you be a better investor. But what I'm supposed to be saying here is today, wherever I go, I will create a more joyful, peaceful and loving world. And if you repeat that every single day, I promise you you will be unstoppable.
00:22:11
Outro: Music.
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