← Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)
Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)
Suze School: Suze Talks "Fitz” - Don’t Miss It
00:49:11
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- [00:00]
Suze Orman
Hi, everybody. Suzio here. Now, what is the goal of money? The goal of money is for you to be secure. And there is no better way for you to be secure than having an emergency savings account. It is essential for your financial foundation. So all of you should be participating in the Ultimate Opportunity savings account at Alliant Credit Union. Go to myalliant.com to find out more. And be secure.
- [00:33]
Keith Fitzgerald
We are strong we are wise we will not apologize we are here we will thrive Together we will rise we're the little faith and everything it takes we are strong we are wise Together we will rise.
- [01:00]
Suze Orman
February 16, 2025 welcome, everybody, to the Women and Money podcast, as well as everybody smart enough to listen. I hope you had a good Valentine's Day. Did you? I did, but we'll have to wait until Thursday when miss Travis can tell you all about it. But for now, I think you all should get out your little Susie notebooks. And today's Suzy School is going to be very, very different. Because today Suzy School, we're going to have a guest. It's not going to be just me. I'm going to pretend like I'm kt and I'm going to be asking the true expert when it comes to certain things about value cost averaging, dollar cost averaging, and, oh, all kinds of other things that you wrote in and asked about before I introduce the most extraordinary and amazing. You have to wait till I say his name. But anyway, last Sunday, I did an episode on value cost averaging on the Women and Money community app. I put up an example of how it works. Boom, there goes my email. And on the Women and Money community app, and you had question after question. And I'll be honest with you, I'm not good enough at that because it isn't my concept. Remember, I was taught it by somebody, our guest, and I decided, you know what? All of you always deserve the best. You deserve the best. The most knowledgeable in certain areas. In fact, in all areas. And in this particular area that we're about to talk about today, which isn't just about value cost averaging, but it's about the markets overall. It's about individual stocks. It's how to make your money, make more money. When it comes to investing, there's in my opinion, the one and only Keith Fitzgerald. And he is with us right now. Good morning, boyfriend.
- [03:18]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, hello there. Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this all week. And thanks to everybody listening for spending a few minutes of your time with us today. This could Be great.
- [03:29]
Suze Orman
This is great. And you know, so many people, Keith wrote in and they said, we wish this could be on video. We want to see both of you. And then they would write in and they said, why don't the two of you always do a podcast together?
- [03:43]
Keith Fitzgerald
Oh, my goodness.
- [03:44]
Suze Orman
All right, so maybe we'll have to do that.
- [03:47]
Keith Fitzgerald
Let's think about it. That would be so much fun, wouldn't it?
- [03:49]
Suze Orman
All right, so everybody, if you don't know about value cost averaging, then you need to go back to last Sunday's podcast and listen to it. You just do. But so many of you have already listened to that podcast. Therefore, I'm going to ask you, Keith, some of the questions that were on the wall and people wrote in, they want to know about it. But then we're going to switch because people are also writing in and going, keith, I bought Palantir at 20. Should I buy it more now? I mean, we have questions all over. But then I also want to give you a little time for you to tell everybody what you want to tell them. They're also asking about, is a program going to come out? Is it not going to come out? So let's answer all their questions today.
- [04:43]
Keith Fitzgerald
Outstanding.
- [04:44]
Suze Orman
And let's hopefully make them happy. Now, I'm going to start off easy here for you.
- [04:50]
Keith Fitzgerald
Okay?
- [04:51]
Suze Orman
All right. The first question which I find fascinating is kind of generic. Doesn't everything depend on the day that you invest your money and where the stock is on on that particular day?
- [05:06]
Keith Fitzgerald
That is a very interesting question with a very simple answer. And it's no, and here's why. The actual day you buy or the time of day you buy or the method by which you buy doesn't matter. The key with something like value cost averaging or even dollar cost averaging is to do it consistently. So if you look at the data, and this is what we do for a living, and we look at all this data, if you look at all the data for hundreds of years, if you're consistent, you are getting around market timing, risk, you are harnessing volatility that others fear. So it doesn't matter whether you pick your birthday, whether you do it on Christmas, whether you pick another holiday, whether you do it even every Monday morning, as long as you do it consistently.
- [05:51]
Suze Orman
Great. There's one next. Looking forward to hearing from both of you together. Yeah, baby, here we are together. I know. Is there a more? And you kind of just answered this. But I'm going to keep drilling this in because I'm telling you, people blew their minds with the details and really the minutia. And it's really a little bit ridiculous, I have to tell you, because they think you have to stick to a certain formula. You can't. It's like they've put themselves into this little box that they're afraid to come out of now. So. Ready? Looking forward to hearing from both of you together. I don't blame you. Is there more ideal time of day to invest the market, open the close and for vca, does it matter what time of month? Also, what about dividing funds for weekly or bi weekly or stick to monthly? See how, what they've done here?
- [06:51]
Keith Fitzgerald
Oh, sure, sure.
- [06:52]
Suze Orman
Exactly. So it's like they're thinking that everything has to be a certain way. Like when I gave the example last Sunday of $12,000 and 1,000amonth, they literally took it that they needed $12,000 and they had to put in $1,000 a month. So first of all, everybody, that was just an example. Last week it was just an example. So you could do it with any amount. But that's the question. What's your answer?
- [07:20]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, there's two elements at work here, right. And they're both counterintuitive. And there's also some fun to this because like anything in the stock market, there's, there's always rhyme or reason or some history. So when I started my career 45 years ago, I mean, I've been doing this for a long, long time, there used to be very definitely a time of day where you could swoop in and have an advantage. And funny enough, that was roughly 10:35 in the morning and roughly 2:38 in the afternoon. And the reason why had nothing to do with the stock exchange. In the morning, the donuts truck would show up and everybody run off the floor to go get donuts. In the afternoon, the hot dog truck would show up and everybody run off the floor to get hot dogs. So if you were trading or you're looking for just a little bit of an edge, you knew that there was going to be a lull in activity and frequently you could get a better price either buying or selling. So, you know, that used to be true, but now what's happened is we have this tremendous shift to computerization. And so most if you go to the New York Stock Exchange today, it's a very quiet place and people are walking around with iPads and there's very little open pit trading left in Chicago anymore. In fact, you go to the Hong Kong exchange, which is one of the busiest in the world, and it's dead silent. So this idea that is there a better time to buy or a worse time to buy really is moot now because the computers have eliminated all of that. But if you really want to try what we're seeing lately, that the first 30 minutes in the last 30 minutes are interesting because there's additional volatility. And interesting can be good or bad. It just depends on how you approach it. So. So I would get that out of your head. The big key is consistency, number one. The other thing is you're falling. If you're thinking that way, there's nothing wrong with that. That's natural, right? A lot of people do that. But you're falling right into Wall Street's trap. Okay? Wall street wants you to think in smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller details because that's how you're easier to separate from your money. If you're constantly off balance, if you're focused on the minutia, you're going to get squeezed every time. The counterintuitive thing to do is to take a deep breath, take a step back, and understand that investing, as much as they want you to think, it's a game of precision, is a game of being close enough. You find great stocks, you invest in them consistently, you hold for as long as you can. You leave your money alone for as long as you can. That really is the key in today's markets. It's counterintuitive. So it's. I would encourage everybody listening. A, that's normal what you're feeling, but B, take a deep breath, step back. That's the real key to success.
- [09:57]
Suze Orman
And the thing is, is that does it matter if it's weekly, bi weekly, or should they stick to monthly?
- [10:04]
Keith Fitzgerald
Okay, that's another wrinkle. Now that's really. My encouragement is once a month is probably just fine for most investors. And the reason is that if you start going down into weekly or bi weekly, suddenly you're getting into market timing. You're getting into, you know, the world of very sophisticated traders who are out to separate you from your money. And you don't want to play that game. The way to beat Wall street is not to engage in fights you can't win and, and not to pick battles that they have an interest in fighting. And so again, counterintuitively, if you're investing consistently and you're doing it once a month, you are far more likely to make money over time than you are to lose it. You are also far more likely to harness the volatility they want you to fear. And finally, you are far more likely to sleep better at night. And I like that part.
- [10:56]
Suze Orman
Yeah. But do you see what I mean, Kate? How they're, like, getting into the. How often. Whatever. This next one is kind of about the what ifs. Do you have to then assign how much money you're allocating to each share in your portfolio at the beginning of the year? So people are confused about. Well, I gave an example. You have $12,000 to invest, and again, they freaked out. So the question is, here we are. Maybe it's March, maybe it's April. How do you start doing this? And how do you know how much to allocate to do this with?
- [11:35]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, again, this is like cooking a great recipe, right? You want to know what ingredients you need before you get started. Because the last thing you want to do is if you're making great cookies, find out you're short of flour, or maybe you're missing the chocolate chips you were counting on or something like that. Right. My suggestion again is you want to think in as long a timeframe as possible. 12 months a year. Most of us can handle. Most of us can say, oh, you know, where am I going to be 12 months from now? We actually call this the painted picture. And what we do is we taste it out at the beginning of the year and we paint a picture. Where do I want to be in the year? What does my cash flow look like? What. What reasonably am I going to have to invest? And that depends on your job, that depends on your family support. Do you have an emergency fund built up? All the things you constantly encourage your listeners to listen to and focus on and do. And once you got those decisions out of the way, it's simply, okay, how much can I realistically invest per month? What do I want my account to grow? And all you got to be is close enough. You don't have to be to the penny. And if your circumstances change during the year, then guess what, you can change your thinking, too. The math still works. So, you know, I liken this to holding my thumb up and looking at the horizon. And if I can see the horizon around my thumb, that's about right.
- [12:44]
Suze Orman
So it's not like you have to have a specific amount of money, like $12,000 that you divide by 12. So you have to invest $1,000 a month, whether it's dollar cost averaging or value cost averaging, you can change as time goes on, correct?
- [13:04]
Keith Fitzgerald
Absolutely. And that's vitally important concept to think about. And, you know, I talk like you to Tens of thousands of investors a year around the world world. And one of the mistakes that everybody makes is they box themselves in. And in today's world, you can't do that. Today's world is constantly fluid. It's very dynamic. We live at one of the most exciting times in human history, which means that being flexible is exactly what you want to do. Because if you're being rigid and uncertain and you're being living in fear, as opposed to investing in optimism, you've already doomed yourself to bad performance. What you want is to build your wealth and your confidence and your knowledge as the markets do that where everybody.
- [13:45]
Suze Orman
Seems to be confused because of the example that I gave.
- [13:51]
Keith Fitzgerald
Welcome to my world.
- [13:52]
Suze Orman
Right, which is with value cost averaging, you look at the value that you intended to have, as you know, every single month, and you invest according to that, depending on the stock price. Again, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, listen to last Sunday's podcast or look at the example on the Women and Money community app. So this now is using that example of $1,000 a month, $12,000 at the end of the year for your target value. Here is the question. I'm getting a little confused around month six, because everybody obviously, in month six, your target value at $1,000 a month would be $6,000 for that month. All right, I thought the target portfolio amount for month six would be $6,000, which I think is the actual portfolio value. If the Stock is at $120 a share, which we said it had gone back up to, then that means that it's already at $6,000 and we don't need to add any more money for that month. So what do we do?
- [15:09]
Keith Fitzgerald
Okay, so let's take the, the model and the example out of the equation for a minute. Let's imagine we're going to the grocery store and let's imagine we've got lately 100 bucks for eggs. But I mean, you know, let's, let's just imagine we've got $20 and we want to buy some eggs, right? If we see the price of eggs go on sale and we know we're going to need them, it's very likely you're going to buy something that's on sale, right? You're going to take that extra amount of money and you're going to buy a few extra eggs because odds are good that the price of those egg next week. That is value cost averaging in a nutshell. If you have a sale in front of You. You spend a little bit extra money to buy whatever stock it is you want to get your hands on. If the price of eggs goes higher and you've already got your eggs on the shelf, guess what? You don't need to buy them. The value of your eggs is already there. You've got them on your shelf. They're already in your pantry. Value cost averaging with stocks is the same way if you have a sale, if the markets come down on you, if the price of that stock drops, drops. What you want to do is think about your target in terms of, okay, my portfolio is worth 100 bucks. Next month, I want it worth 110. So I'm going to add a little extra money to bring the value of my portfolio to 110, regardless of what the stock has done. So you buy a few extra shares. And the advantage to doing that, Susie, is that you buy low, you sell high. Over time, that dramatically accelerates your profit potential, particularly if you're working with dividend stocks and you leave your money alone for a long time, you will come roaring out of the basement and turn around four or five years from now, go, wow, I had no idea. Because suddenly you've bought lower and sold higher.
- [16:48]
Suze Orman
The main difference that I think I have, right. You'll have to tell me, but that most people aren't quite grasping is that dollar cost averaging was very simple for them. They picked a specific amount of money and they pushed automatic. And every month, that amount of money was taken out of their money market accounts to buy stock. What they're missing, however, is with value cost averaging, even though in both cases, as the stock goes down, you're buying more, and obviously, as the stock goes up, you're buying less. But with value cost averaging, you're getting a little bit more than with dollar cost averaging because you're not sticking to the same dollar amount every month. Bingo. Say that again.
- [17:42]
Keith Fitzgerald
Bingo.
- [17:43]
Suze Orman
Say it again.
- [17:44]
Keith Fitzgerald
Bingo.
- [17:45]
Suze Orman
Bingo.
- [17:45]
Keith Fitzgerald
Bingo. Bingo.
- [17:46]
Suze Orman
Bingo.
- [17:46]
Keith Fitzgerald
Bingo.
- [17:46]
Suze Orman
Bingo. Bingo. Bingo. And that's what they're missing. You want to get more value for your money, everybody. You don't want to go on automatic and just, oh, I'm going to invest $1,000 a month or $100 a month, when if you just invested $120 a month, you would be getting a few more. Even if it's a half a fraction of a share more, that half a fraction of a share more will make you a whole lot more money in the long run. And that is what they are missing. Right? So again, just to repeat, like, another question, Maybe I missed something. What if month four, the value is at $4,000, then you don't buy any more shares. So in fact, you might not actually invest the whole $12,000 in one year because the account value has increased. They forget. Well, you tell them what they forget, what they could do with that money.
- [18:46]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, you forget two things, right? Because if you've got a stockpile of cash and it's sitting on your pantry shelf and the eggs go on sale, number one, you've got the flexibility to go ahead and buy them if you want. But number two, if you're used to dollar cost averaging and you're disciplined and you already got that under control, here's where this gets really cool and really interesting. Because if you're used to putting in 500 bucks a month and you're already mentally disciplined, you're paying yourself, you're doing all the things Susie encourages you to do constantly, then go ahead and do it anyway, but put it in a short term treasury fund. Now all of a sudden, you're earning 4%, 3%, 5%. Your cash is stockpiled. It's not sitting there. You're not tempted to spend it because you've already paid yourself, you've already invested. And then when you get the chance, and the market will inevitably hand you several chances during the year to do.
- [19:37]
Suze Orman
This, or you could take that extra money that you're not investing in stock A and possibly start to do the same thing with stock B or etf. So there's, you don't have to just stick with one stock and just go, oh, now what do I do? Jiang, are you starting to get this? Everybody? You've put yourself into a box. And the last thing both Keith and I want you to do when it comes to investing is limit yourself. Investing is about expansion. The investing is about understanding your own emotions and really keeping them at bay and thinking, oh, I've done something wrong. Da, da, da. No, just keep listening and you'll get it. Last one on this, which is maybe I'm not completely understanding it, but it seems that in this example, why did I give this example anyway of having $12,000 to invest, that if the stock price is decreasing for several months or there is a steep drop, would you deplete your $12,000 before month 12?
- [20:56]
Keith Fitzgerald
Okay, that is A, a very smart question, B, a very logical question, and C, I love it because it means you're thinking ahead. You're really beginning to understand how this, this works. The markets go through protracted downturns, but here's the thing, and this is where you've got to really, again, I've been doing this a long time. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn as I came up through the ranks is you've got to learn to trust the numbers. You've got to learn to trust human psychology. And let me give you a data point that will really drive this home is the markets since 1871 have a very defined find upward bias. If you look at other markets for even far more ancient periods in history, they all have an upside bias. But our stock markets today, since 1871, have spent 83 to 85% of the time at or within 10% of new all time highs. Meaning that there are a lot more bulls than bears over time. And if you buy the right companies, if you're DCA or VCA into the right companies, you are automatically putting the odds in your favor. That's roughly if we look at it again, since 1871, there's 1300 new highs. That's roughly one new all time high a month for a long period of time. So the idea that you are playing not to lose is where everybody's mindset is, but where your mindset should be is playing to win. And that's a very different mental calculus. And again, if you're thinking I'm playing not to lose, there's nothing wrong with that. That worked for a long time. Diversification worked for a long time. But you're falling into Wall Street's trap. What you want to think about is flipping that around, playing to win, playing to get those great companies, playing to build your wealth. This is not a competition. It's about what you want to achieve with your life and your world and your money. Because if you work hard for your money, there's going to come a day when where your money works hard for you. And that's what VCA is all about. It's like taking, you know, buy and hold is good, DCA is better. But vca, really, now you're cooking with some hot sauce. It gives you the opportunity for bigger returns, less risk and discipline.
- [23:09]
Suze Orman
So to answer his question though, the chances of him being totally.
- [23:14]
Keith Fitzgerald
Oh, I forgot about that part. I got so excited. I forgot about that part. I mean, I love what I do. Yes, to answer your question, that is absolutely possible in a protracted downturn. However, we've done a lot of research in this area. That's not a bad thing either because what it means is you have now invested deeply, you've invested at a substantial discount. And you've built up a substantial reserve for when the markets come roaring back.
- [23:43]
Suze Orman
And they will, because remember everybody, these markets aren't going to tank overnight. 50 or 100%. And if you keep being diligent, you're investing, you're investing and you're investing. And now you're out of your $12,000. It's all spent. But you haven't lost the money. It's invested in a stock that you wanted to buy that was a good quality stock. And the reason that it went down isn't cause the stock itself was bad, it's that all the boats were sinking because the water went down. When it turns around. And a great example of this was 2009, you know, when the Standard and Poor's 500 index, I think was at 600 and all these stocks were at nothing. They had all gone down incredibly. And if you just kept them, and now you have a whole lot of shares because they got so cheap as you were buying them. Oh my God, you made a fortune over the next years. So you're not out of money. You've invested all the money that you designated towards that stock. And once that amount of money is designated, you bought all the shares you can with it.
- [24:55]
Keith Fitzgerald
Good.
- [24:55]
Suze Orman
Now you just hold them.
- [24:57]
Keith Fitzgerald
And the really cool thing about that, right? And again, you know, learning this as a professional trader, as a professional investor, that's a great problem to have because, because of the dramatically increased profit potential when the markets come roaring back. So it's, it's. Maybe you think, oh, this is, this is bad, I'm out of cash, I can't buy more. That's the real problem is you can't buy more. But you've already locked in your future returns. So I mean, how cool a trade off is that? And you know, again, it's counterintuitive. It doesn't make a lot of sense at first. But when you really think about buying at a discount and you think about buying these great companies, I mean, this is like buying Apple at $10 a share or being able to buy Palantir at 6 when it dropped. I mean, think about that. Right?
- [25:38]
Suze Orman
I did.
- [25:40]
Keith Fitzgerald
Exactly. Me too. I mean, I bought more, you know, I mean people, people are like, oh my God. But it could go down. Yes, it could. But when it comes roaring back, imagine how much bigger your profit potential has become. That's how a winner thinks. So get rid of that fear. I mean, that's normal. That's, you know, you're not abnormal if you're feeling that but do make an effort to take those emotions out of the equation because you are listening to Susie, you are playing to win, and I'm not the entertainment.
- [26:08]
Suze Orman
Also, if they're smart, they're listening to you.
- [26:12]
Keith Fitzgerald
You're very kind.
- [26:13]
Suze Orman
So one last about this, then we'll quickly go to Palantir and other things. But all these people did this Monte Carlo. I mean, some of these people went to the 10th degree to figure out what's better, dollar cost averaging or value cost averaging. And they want to know as if it makes really a tremendous difference. So just briefly, can you answer that for these people?
- [26:41]
Keith Fitzgerald
Absolutely. So I was king of the nerd herd growing up. I had my propeller beanie and everything. And you know, my background is in nonlinear data science. So this is a question that we have spent tens of thousands of hours of computing time on. Yes, We've run those same Monte Carlo simulations. We have run all of the randomizers. You can think, we've done walk forward testing, we've won back testing, we've done testing on the testing. And what we have learned is that there is absolutely no question that value cost average is the best way to go. Where it breaks down is when people start trying to second guess it. Oh, I've got to do it on this date. I've got to do it on this time. I've got to. I'm going to be out of cash. Oh, my gosh, it's falling too long. Those are questions that are put on by human limitations, not quantitative limitations as part of the modeling. And so we've run it with small data sets, We've run it with millions and billions of data points in the sets. And every single time, under a wide range of conditions, both hypothetical and real, VCA wins.
- [27:42]
Suze Orman
Yeah. So for those of you who wrote into me and I appreciate it, and you present like I ran this Monte Carlo, which is. It's a program that, I don't know, I've yet to really think that it comes out with the best answers for all of you. But that's besides the point.
- [28:00]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, let me speak about that. There's an interesting thing, right? So the Monte Carlo simulation is a quantitative exercise that supposedly introduces randomizing variables to the test set. And there's a huge proposition in the market that Burton Michael wrote this thing, a random walk down Wall Street. You know, the markets are random. Nobody can predict them. Well, I believe, you know, people who are a lot smarter than I am believe that's not true. The markets are not random. There are very predictable elements to them. And that is exactly why VCA works in today's markets, is because what we're doing is we're not working on the random price nature of the markets. We're not working on the random stocks. We're very deliberate about which stocks are we picking? How are we using it? What are the tactics we're picking? So we're automatically stacking the odds in our favor to nth degree. I mean, now, obviously, the world could be a very quiet place for a few thousand years if things get out of control geopolitically. But the markets are not going to be our worry if that happens. Right? So take that out. It's more important to invest as if the sun's coming up tomorrow. And what we know from the Monte Carlo simulations and all the other simulations we do is that VCA wins.
- [29:06]
Suze Orman
But you know what's so funny? These people write and they're so proud at the research and the things that they've done. I just want to say something to all of you. I'm thrilled that you're doing that, and you come up with your own conclusion based on maybe one study or whatever. I'm asking you all now to listen to Keith. For 40 years, he has been doing this. When he says he's a propeller head and a nerd. Oh, he is. Half the time he's talking about things, and I'm like, what the hell did you just say? But you can run your own if you want, or you could take 40 years of experience and millions of dollars of research computerization that none of you have the ability to do truthfully. And listen to what he just said. He has nothing to gain other than to help you help yourself. We're switching now. We'll run this podcast a little bit longer than normal because we have the master here. And I just want to answer the main things you want to know which is. Ready for this? Drum roll. There we go. Is it too late to buy Palantir?
- [30:26]
Keith Fitzgerald
No way.
- [30:28]
Suze Orman
I. I thought you were going to say no way. But anyway, if he were just talking to me alone, everybody, he would have used the word. But since we're on a podcast, he's trying to show you he's a dignified man, which he is.
- [30:43]
Keith Fitzgerald
You're very kind.
- [30:44]
Suze Orman
Anyway, go on, go on.
- [30:45]
Keith Fitzgerald
Okay, so. So here's. Here's how you break it down, right? And again, there are a couple different elements that intersect here, which is why people are asking this question, right? Number one. Oh, my God. Is it too late? Well, think about that. If it's a great party and you know it's going to go on for a long time. Are you too late to get there at 8:00 as opposed to 7:00? No way. You're going to walk through the door and have a great time. Right now you're going to have to look a little harder because maybe the room's going to be a little crowded before you get to the bar. The cocktail tray or the hors d'oeuvres, whatever. Same situation here. Palantir is still a phenomenal stock. It is still early days. We are still ahead of one of the greatest single trends in recorded human history. And that's how we use AI and big data. There is nobody else who does what they do. The numbers are all going in the right direction. The CEO is unapologetically in support of his shareholders. He could give a, you know, what about Wall street, which is really attractive from an investing standpoint, but then at the bottom line, the way you control this is to use a tactic like vca. Because behind the scenes, professional traders have, believe it or not, they have largely missed the boat. They couldn't check their boxes, they couldn't see Palantir in their spreadsheets. I can't tell you how many thousands of traders, professionals, I've heard from, seen, watched, who missed this boat. So now they know they've missed it. So their goal is going to be to introduce volatility, scare you out of your shares at a lower price so they can buy it and use VCA or some variant of it that we've been talking about, so that they can get their hands on the run higher. I think we're looking at 200 bucks a share. I was a lone wolf in the woods when I said that initially. I mean, we took out every price target, 50, 70, 80, 100. I think we're 200 within 36 months. Probably quite a bit sooner than that.
- [32:42]
Suze Orman
So another question is, how do I know if I'm investing too much in Palantir? I don't know. I think you can't invest enough in it. But that's just my opinion. Go on.
- [32:53]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, that is a very simple answer too, believe it or not. Again, it has nothing to do with numbers. Are you sleeping at night? I mean, are you worried about it? Because if you're asking that question, my answer would be, and having worked with thousands of investors around the world for decades, is if you're asking that question or you're losing sleep at night, you've got too much risk. On the table. So dial it back.
- [33:13]
Suze Orman
The next one is that if Palantir has doubled on you, right? And the truth is, many of these people bought it at 20, how cool is that? Now here we are, almost 100 points higher, and now they're afraid. So should they be selling? Should they're just freaks. Should they do free trades? Any advice them?
- [33:38]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, I just wrote about this the other day to our clients, you know, professional and otherwise, and said, okay, there's something you want. A professional has a big gain on the table like that. There's something called selling into strength. And you want to sell because you have the opportunity, and you can not, because you must. And the reason most investors feel the fear that people are voicing is because they're holding on too tight. They can't let the stock fly like they want it to because they're worried about it. They're scared about it. They've let their emotions cloud their judgment. So here's my answer, and it's twofold. Number one, if you want to take a little bit of money off the table and get to the point where you're sleeping at night and you're not worried about it, I would submit that's probably a pretty smart thing to do. On the other hand, if you don't need your money for five or 10 years and you can stomach the volatility and you make peace with the headlines and you understand what I'm telling you about Wall street wanting to. To take your money, then you know what? You just hold your nose, let it ride, put a big smile on your face, Cheshire grin like I have, and you let it run. Because stocks like this are going to run again. I've done this a long time. I've learned every lesson I talk about the hard way, right? And if you hold on too tight, guess what? Sooner or later you're going to fall off the rope. If you hold on too loose, maybe you can't grab the rope. So it's not a competition. It's what's right for you out there. Everybody listening. Get comfortable with it. Get mentally comfortable with it. If you're not, then sell a little bit. Get to the point where you are, and use tactics like DCA and VCA to start reaccumulating positions, because that's how you control risk and maximize profit potential.
- [35:14]
Suze Orman
However, one of your OBA ers one bar ahead, which is a service that Keith has that all of you are more than welcome if you want serious education, everything to join, however, wrote me and said, susie, since he's going to be on. He wrote and said if you have it, you might want to sell 25% and actually maybe even do a strategy in case it goes down. Is he expecting it to go down?
- [35:44]
Keith Fitzgerald
No, that's not quite a correct assessment. It was 10% of the value, but then on top of that, no, I'm not expecting it to go down at all. That had nothing to do with expecting it to go down. That had everything to do with reducing risk, which is inherent in the DCA tactic. You know, it's like going to Vegas. Gambling theory and investing theory is very similar in this regard. The longer you leave your money on the table or in a stock you own, the higher the risk there is. So what you want to do is, again, this is a professional grade tactic. As you start to accumulate position, everybody's going, yeehaw. You know, they're going off to the rodeo, but they also forget they could get bucked off. And so what you want to do is you want to just like step back for a little bit, take a little money off the table, harness it, you know, I mean, that's. We sell 10%, knock it back down a little bit quantitatively and continue to accumulate the shares. Because you never look a gift horse in the mouth when a stock really runs really quickly. This casino doesn't owe you a seven any more than Palantir does.
- [36:42]
Suze Orman
One more question before we go on to the program or whatever it is that we're going to create here for everybody, which is I'm waiting for you to talk about topics relating to the risk of our bank accounts, savings and assets. How do we protect them Now? Everybody is scared to death with everything that's going on that they don't understand. They're all afraid that their money's going to become worthless. Banks are going to close. FDIC isn't going to be able to pay for anything. The treasuries are going. I have people writing me and said I cashed out of all my treasuries because the Treasury. So everybody is scared to death. What would you tell them?
- [37:28]
Keith Fitzgerald
Okay, number one, you got to take a deep breath. I mean, you just owe it to yourself to take a deep breath. And this is something we talk about all the time with our clients around the world. There is stuff you can control and there is stuff you can't control. You can't control what's going to happen with the Treasury Department any more than you can control the price of a green door in mainland China. You just can't. But what you can control is buying great companies, investing in amazing technology stuff that is going to build your future. So, you know, again, to my comment earlier, you can invest as if the sun's going to come up tomorrow, which is statistically the more viable thing to do and history proves it beyond any shadow of a doubt. Or you can cower in fear. And if you cower in fear, you have got to come to terms with it. You're going to get left behind. That's just as simple as that. And again, it doesn't feel good, it's scary, it's uncertain. But here's the other thing about that, right? I mean, I run into this a lot. Matter of fact, I'm speaking in Vegas next week. I know this question is going to come up, but what about the treasury, but what about the Fed? Well, the numbers show that those things don't matter on anything other than a short term basis. So again, take a deep breath, trust the numbers. Look at your history. The most dangerous words in the English language are, yeah, but it'll be different this time. Odds are it will not. In fact, odds are we're going to find a way through this. It may not be perfect, it may be kick the can, but that's all the domain of clickbait artists, late night email scammers and fooroos, all of whom want to sell you something or want your attention for whatever reason. If you stay focused on the great companies, on the great CEO's, on the big, broad, sweeping themes that are improving humanity, improving our financial situation, and you're thinking like a winner, suddenly you can invest in optimism. And that's a whole different picture. You can look forward to the sun coming up every single morning instead of worrying about what happens when it sets.
- [39:35]
Suze Orman
That's my man. Now the biggest question of all.
- [39:40]
Keith Fitzgerald
I didn't do it.
- [39:41]
Suze Orman
No, but I kind of did. Uh, oh, right. And it's this. When is the program coming out?
- [39:51]
Keith Fitzgerald
Oh my goodness.
- [39:51]
Suze Orman
Which does this thing. And I've told everybody they had to be patient, number one, because this was a project that was actually turned out to be far more complicated than ever before because it wasn't just about Keith, everybody being able to do value cost averaging and everything on a set number of stocks that he has found followed without having to determine money into the equation. It was just buy this, buy, sell that, whatever it may be. This is where and I told you a little bit about how we wanted the program to work. You would decide the amount of money you want to invest and every month you would Get a email saying, buy this many shares and it would all be personalized for you. That turned out to be a whole lot more difficult because of the number of people that most likely will sign up for this, which could be 100 or 200,000 people because of both of our audiences. So therefore I then said, wait, wait, maybe we don't do that. Maybe we create in exchange traded fun. Or really it's Keith, you create an exchange traded fund, people just buy shares in it and you get to do anything you want with the stock within there. So I kind of screwed it up as well. And then Keith started to go, oh, maybe we should go down that road. Maybe we should call it this. I mean, the two of us can drive each other crazy, but the two of us love each other so much. But that's what happens when you put together two brainiacs that really care about their customer. They care about every single one of you. And so what's the best way combining both of our cares for you and doing it for sophisticated investors as well as investors that ask some of the questions that you're asking me, which are like, oh, you're just starting out, you're afraid, you're a woman who just lost her spouse and you're 70 years of age and you want to just do it. So tell them what you're thinking now, Keith.
- [42:19]
Keith Fitzgerald
Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, Susie's absolutely right. When we started this project, the markets were in sort of one state of mind and we started looking at the complexities involved. You know, all of a sudden it went from, from a few million calculations a day to literally billions of calculations a day. The permutations involved with hundreds of thousands of people tracking, you know, 30, 40 stocks or whatever it is, you know, the number was going to be. And then doing all the math in VCA necessary to do that was one problem. The other problem was that the markets themselves changed. And, you know, even within the last two years, you know, you've seen stocks like Nvidia and Tesla and Costco and Walmart and some of the names you hear me talk about on television a lot, these stocks have gone absolutely bananas. And so that made, you know, the nature of picking stocks very, very complicated because we, you know, we don't just throw darts on a wall and say, hey, I think you should buy this. I mean, there's a lot of quantitative stuff that goes on under the hood. Before you hear me talk about a stock, whether it's, you know, here on television or in one bar ahead, I have to Know with absolute certainty that I've got the confidence in that stock to recommend it, because I buy those stocks, too. I mean, you know, if I'm talking about it, I like to eat my own cooking. A lot of people don't, but I do. And you see those disclosures every single time I'm on television. I own it, my family owns it, my company recommends it. No investment banking. You know, I am very transparent about this, so.
- [43:35]
Suze Orman
And therefore Susie owns them all too.
- [43:38]
Keith Fitzgerald
Exactly. Well, this is the thing. I mean, this is why we're pals, right? But the thing about that, right, is now you have. When we started, you had maybe 30, 40% of the market that was computerized. But the rise of passive investing, the blend of options, Wall Street's go fast crowd, now you have 80 to 85% of the market on any given day that is moving by computer with no humans involved, no regard for the fundamentals, no regard for the selection process. So it makes that problem a little complicated. And then that third thing, that little, you know, that little thing called the cloud, you know, people have heard of that, but the architecture of the cloud keeps changing. So every time we'd engineer something, you'd get right up to the starting line, you know, Amazon, which we intend to use, would change the way the cloud works. And so we had to reprogram everything. So. So, long story short, we're very close. We're rejiggering, but it's going to be ready when it's ready. We are also pursuing an ETF because that's something that any investor can use. It can be point, click, buy. You don't have to worry about a dang thing, except maybe VCA into the ETF itself, so it becomes dramatically simplified. We take care of all that other stuff behind the scenes, and you don't have to lift a finger.
- [44:43]
Suze Orman
And personally, that's my vote.
- [44:45]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, me too.
- [44:47]
Suze Orman
But here's what's interesting, and tell them the truth. Over a year ago, Yep. Maybe a year and a half ago, I said, can't we just do an etf?
- [44:57]
Keith Fitzgerald
Oh, you did. Yes, you did. And I got Susie schooled on that. Yes, I did.
- [45:02]
Suze Orman
Right. And no, it's like, no, if we do an etf, they're gonna. Everybody's gonna find out about the secret sauce. And I don't want everybody to know what we're doing. Cause all. Because what happens with Keith's work, a lot, everybody is. Everybody rips it off because they know that it's so good. All these years of his experience and the money he's invested in the computer systems, all of a sudden you see it somewhere and they're taking credit for it, and then all of a sudden it makes it that it's not. It's just not good. With an etf, it was possible that they could go in and re engineer what Keith had done and bring it out in another etf. And that's why Keith didn't want to do it. Now he thinks that he can protect it. Is that correct?
- [45:53]
Keith Fitzgerald
That is absolutely correct. And not only that, but the group that we're working with has just within the last week, signed all the documents promising to protect it. So it's a very different playing field now.
- [46:04]
Suze Orman
So if it's true, everybody, and he can do that, trust me, you are far better off. Rather than getting an email every month, you figuring out what you should do and you doing it every month, even though that's how you would learn about investing, it would be far better off for you in the long run to simply be able to VCA into the etf. And there you go, on with your life. So I hope you understand that we haven't meant to, you know, go, no, don't invest. That's why I did a podcast quite a few months ago saying don't wait. You are to continue to invest right now, continue to do these things we've talked about. But that's the direction that Keith is going, and I always wanted him to go because I know from the bottom of my heart it will be the easiest and most profitable thing for you to do because you don't have to worry about it. You're on vacation, you don't get the email, you don't do it. And given the emails that I've gotten about value cost averaging and how do you do it if you have a whole lot of stocks and I only want 4% of my port. No, just you can do what you want with your stocks, but there should be a sum of your money that can be under the ETF doing it for you. What do you think, Keith?
- [47:29]
Keith Fitzgerald
Well, yes, and there's one other big benefit to that too, Susie, and, and it's this is if you have an etf, suddenly your financial professionals, if you have one, or your planners that you work with, can work on integrating it into your financial plan. So it adds to the flexibility in terms of how you can use it, and it also makes it suitable for somebody who's just starting out and has just a little bit of money to invest, but it also opens it up to very, very sophisticated, very, very large investors. Again, all at the touch of a button. So as frustrated as I am personally about the complexity of where we started and where we are now, I think that this is going to be a very viable, very good solution. And we're hoping to get it across the finish line very, very quickly.
- [48:15]
Suze Orman
So I hope all of you enjoyed this podcast with the Maestro. Before we go, anything else you want to say?
- [48:25]
Keith Fitzgerald
Just thank you to everybody. Thank you to you, Susie, for having me on. What an honor. I mean, just as I say, I've been looking forward forward to this all week, and it has met and exceeded every single one of my expectations. What a privilege to be on with you today and to have everybody out there putting your faith and your trust in what I have to say. Thank you for your time.
- [48:43]
Suze Orman
Thank you, Keith. I love you so much, I can't even stand it. I hope you had a good Valentine's Day, too.
- [48:49]
Keith Fitzgerald
We did. And right back at you. Love you, Susie.
- [48:52]
Suze Orman
All right, everybody. So there's only one thing that we both want you to remember when it comes to your money, and it's people first, then money, then things. I hope you enjoy today. I hope you all stay safe and know that together we will rise we.
- [49:13]
Keith Fitzgerald
Are strong we are wise we will not apologize we are here we will thrive Together we will rise Rise we're.
- [49:24]
Suze Orman
The.
- [49:26]
Keith Fitzgerald
And everything it takes we are strong we are wise Together we will rise.
- [49:42]
Suze Orman
Hi, everybody. Suzie O here. Now, if you are looking for a way to start saving to get the most out of your money, I want you to go to myalliant.com that's M y a l l I a n t dot com and look into opening an Ultimate Opportunity savings account. Put in at least $100 a month, every single month for 12 consecutive months. Earn 3.10% interest on your money right now and get $100 at the end. Are you kidding me? It's the best deal out there. Start saving right now.
- [50:19]
Keith Fitzgerald
Neither Susie Orman Media nor Susie Orman is acting as a certified financial planner and advisor, a certified financial analyst, an economist, CPA accountant or lawyer. Neither Suze Orman Media nor Suze Orman make any recommendations as to any specific securities or investments. All content contained in this podcast is for informational and general purposes only and does not constitute financial accounting or legal advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and financial advisors regarding your particular situation. Neither Suze Orman Media nor Suze Orman accepts any responsibility for any losses which may arise from accessing or reliance on information in this podcast and to the fullest extent permitted by law. We exclude all liability for loss damages, direct or indirect, arising from the use of this information. The must have documents discussed in this podcast are legal documents created by a lawyer and distributed by Hay House.