We March 2nd, 2025. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast as well as everybody smart enough to listen. Suze O here, and today is Suze School, and here's what I want you to know. First of all, take out your notebooks because I think you're gonna want to write things down. Second, I'm going to touch on interest rates. Then the stock market, and I'm sure many of you are just freaked when it comes to Palantir. Even though I told you, don't be surprised.
To see it down at 75 or 85, but that's another story. And if we have time, I will touch on real estate. So let's begin. Have you been watching interest rates? Oh, you haven't, have you, because interest rates don't concern you unless of course you have a CD or a Treasury maturing, which I'm going to also talk to you about in a second, but currently interest rates are coming down. For instance, the one year treasury is all the way down at about 4.09%.
The two-year treasury is at about 3.9%, and the 10-year treasury is 4.2%. OK. It would not shock me on any level if the 10 year treasury goes down to 4%, which would be really, really great because then mortgage rates would start to trend down. Will they trend down enough for many of you who are willing to sell the house that you currently have at a 2.5 or 2 3/4% mortgage to possibly buy a new one at 5.5%?
6%, not exactly sure, but we will see. Let's get back to interest rates and why I want to talk to you about this. As you know, many of you one year ago purchased one year certificates of deposits. In fact, many of you purchased those one year certificates of deposits at Alliant Credit Union, who sponsors this podcast. Now, what's interesting is that in this month those CDs are going to mature and you are going to have a choice of what should you do with it.
Should you roll it over? Should you look somewhere else? What are you going to do? Currently, the one year rate for new customers, for people just doing it. The one year rate is at 4.25%, not bad on any level, however, and listen to me closely. I had a long talk the other day with the powers that be at Alliant Credit Union, and they are making a special offer as they normally do do for the Women and Money podcast listeners, and here is how it works.
If you decide to roll over into another one year. Certificate of deposit with Alliant Credit Union. You will get 4.35% for amounts under $75,000 or 4.4%. For amounts of $75,000 or over, however, here is the real kicker if you decide to put in new money. Not money that you're rolling over but actually add to it, you will get those interest rates as well. I personally think those are great rates for a one year certificate of deposit, bar none, however, I want you to listen to me now.
As you know, with Alliant Credit Union, unlike any other credit union out there, does this crazy thing when it comes to their maturities with CDs. When you get a CD, they have a 12 month currently at 4.25%, a 2 year for 3.80%. OK. Listen to me closely now. They do this crazy thing where if you decide to get a 12 month CD you can stagger the maturities
of that from 12 months to 13 months. You could choose 1415, 16, or 17 months if you were to then choose, you have to talk to them when you're doing this, a 17 month maturity. It matures in 17 months and 30 days, and you would be locking in either 4.35% or 4.40% for that entire amount of time versus 3.8% for a two year. So you're almost going to be able to get a 2 year certificate of deposit at Alliant Credit Union. It's only 17 months and 30 days.
But get a significantly higher interest rate. If I were you, I would seriously consider doing that. So again, for those of you who do have certificates of deposits with Alliant Credit Union that are maturing the month of March. So I'm addressing just you now, just those of you who have that. You can if you roll it over, you will get 4.35% for under $75,000 4.4 for amounts $75,000 and over, and that will include if you want to add any additional money to those CDs just.
That simple and you again can change your maturity if you want from 12 months anywhere up to 17 months. So I just wanted to tell you that you would go to myalliant.com to check it out, or better yet, call them and talk to them directly about this. Next topic, the stock market. Now, I'm sure all of you, like I said in the introduction to this podcast, you want me to talk about talent here, but the truth of the matter, it's far more than just one stock.
What have I always told you is the main internal obstacle to wealth. The main internal obstacle to wealth is fear. Fear everybody just that simple. And what are people afraid of right now? I want you to think about it. Half this world seems to be afraid that they're absolutely going to lose their job if they work for the federal government.
Even if you don't work for the federal government, you're afraid if you work for a retailer, retailers everywhere are starting to shutter their businesses and or lay off thousands of people. So this universal fear that you hear on the news all the time or your friends are telling you permeates the atmosphere. And what we see happening because of that, the economy now is starting to go down, go down in what way? People are stopping to shop. Retail sales are down. Real
estate is down. Things are starting to happen where we're going down rather than going up, just that simple. Then we have things where the cost of meat is going up. The cost of eggs still going up. Everybody is afraid that measles is going to spread throughout the entire United States. That another possible pandemic may happen with Ebola from across the sea. And that we don't have the infrastructure to handle any
of it and inwardly we are all afraid. We have heard that they're going to absolutely cut the defense budget and so in our heads and everybody else start to say, well, that means they are going to cut stocks like Palantir and things like that. So rumors are abound everywhere. Everybody is afraid we see on TV what recently just happened between the United States and Ukraine, and what does that mean for all of us. So this is not exactly the most peaceful, wonderful time.
Energy goes everywhere. You cannot stop it and when energy is frenetic, when energy is afraid, when energy is just going, oh, what am I gonna do if something happens? That affects everything, and what it affects is the stock market because a lot of people are afraid, oh my God, everything's going to go to hell. Where should I take my money? Do I need to take it to a Swiss bank account? Do you know that's my number one email right now that I'm getting, Suze.
How do I open up a Swiss bank account? OK, now, what does that tell you? In the entire time that I've done this podcast, the Suze Orman show, nobody has ever asked me that question before, and now people are asking that question. Why would they ask that question? It's because they are afraid. So when you are afraid and you have stocks that have incredible gains in them, you start to take them.
And then when you start to take them and you see the stocks start to go down, then you go, Oh, I better take them, and everybody jumps on the bandwagon. Prices go down. You feel good for a while, cause maybe you sold Palantir at 95, and now here it's at 85 and you feel like such a winner. Are you kidding me? Again, remember you are not investing with money that you hopefully need right away. You are investing with money that
you don't need for the long run. And while it's true, maybe you made good money in Palantir or whatever stocks you may happen to have sold outside of a retirement account. Did you take into consideration whether you're gonna be paying ordinary income tax on that gain or capital gains tax, cause if you're going to pay ordinary income tax, which simply means That you didn't hold it for at least one year or longer, you might be losing 30 or 40% of that gain to taxes. Let's say you bought it at
$50 a share. It's now at $100 a share when you sold it. You haven't held it for at least a year or longer. Let's just say you're in the 30% combined federal and state income tax bracket. So that means $15 of that $50 gain is gonna go to taxes, so to speak, and that means rather than selling at $100 after taxes you have $85 which is where it is right now. Am I making sense to you for a second? I would like you to think back to 2022. Do you remember what happened in 2022? Do you?
Well, if you don't, let me just remind you, the magnificent seven stocks like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla had one of the most challenging years ever. Collectively they totally all tanked and underperformed the market and why was that? Because interest rates were rising and they started to go down. There was economic uncertainty, valuation concerns, the same thing kind of is now anyway, and they tanked.
In fact, they weren't known as the Magnificent Seven, everybody. Do you know that they were referred to as the Stinky 7. Because of how badly they had gone down, and I remember looking at them and going, Are you kidding me? But a year later, for instance, Nvidia that had been obliterated, went up 240% in 2023.
And then as time went on, they all started to skyrocket, and if you had purchased them in 2022, You would have in the following 2 years made an absolute fortune to put it mildly, all right. We are going through a time like that right now with these stocks, but you did not buy these stocks, everybody, for you to simply buy it and then sell it a few months later. A year later, 2 years later.
If the stocks are good, and I've said this to you before, if the stock is good, management is good, product is good, product is something that is going to be very futuristic, and all the other things that go into making a great stock. You want to build wealth. You just don't want gains, and then what are you going to do with them, OK?
You want wealth. Now that doesn't mean that when a stock skyrockets, that if you need the money, you don't take some off the table, especially if the stock has gone up so high. That it's now creating too big of a position in your overall portfolio in just one stock. In English, maybe you have too much money at risk, and then you have to take some off the table to invest somewhere else or put in a money market fund, keep it safe and sound, and if the stock happens to tank again, you buy it back.
But you have to understand. When do you keep a stock? When do you sell it, and when do you add to it? Now let's go back to Palantir. One of the reasons Palantir obviously got hit so hard, went all the way up to 125, way too fast. Then now is down at 85. That is a dramatic decline, everybody.
But if it never had gone up to 125 and it was just at 85, all of you would still be absolutely thrilled given that many of you bought it at 10, at 20, at 40, or 50, and you would still have a tremendous gain. Those that are freaking are those that it went up to 125. Then it went down, you bought some more maybe like I did at 113, then it went down some more to 98 and maybe you bought more like
I did. And now, as I said in a podcast, I think it was last week, don't be surprised to see it at 75 or 85, then it went down. And I'm buying some more, but I have the funds to continuously to buy more in large chunk moves. 113 to 98 is a good move. 98 to 85, that's a significant move, so I bought more. And if it goes from 85 to 75, I will buy more. But the big question at hand is, do you continuously have money to buy more, because if you don't, you
have to be selective. $1 cost averaging as to how often do you buy it because you're not going to catch it at its bottom. Again this stock can go anywhere it wants to. So you have to decide, you have another $300 that you can put into Palantir totally. So all right, put $50 at a time in it. So that you have at least 6 more times that you can buy the stock if it continues to go down.
Are you understanding what I'm saying? Where you get in big trouble is if you bought it at 125 and you don't have any more money to put into it, and now you're down at 85. That is a serious mistake, everybody. Which is why dollar cost averaging is absolutely essential. Value cost averaging is absolutely essential, and that is why in markets like this you do not, and I repeat, you do not want to do lumps. Some investing, which means, oh, I have to buy the stock.
I just have to buy it. It's at $125. It's gonna go to $150. I already missed it and you buy it and let's say you had $5000 to invest in it and you put all $5000 in at once. You cannot make a bigger mistake than that, and you may think that you're doing great if it continues up. But not on a stock that has gone straight up. Are you understanding? So am I freaked about Palantir? I am not.
Do I wish it had stayed up there? No, cause I like that it's come down cause I can keep buying more, but I have the funds to do so. So the question at hand to all of you, do you have the funds to do so? And do you have other stocks besides Palantir? So you just need time, but besides time you also need diversification cause you cannot put all of your money
into just the magnificent seven and think that's diversification. You need other kinds of stocks, and if you don't know which stocks to buy, then buy an exchange traded fund like Vu VOO or Spider SPY or the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index VTI, just get some diversification in there. So that you're not 100% exposed to the magnificent seven. So if you did that and you had diversification.
You won't be so freaked that one stock is down considerably right now, but your other stock should be relatively OK. All right, so I'm asking you just to realize Palantir is still great. What I found fascinating is that the stock was down even more on Friday. It was down to about 79, and right after the argument that happened at the White House ended Nvidia that was down 3 or 4 at that moment in time, both those stocks finished up right after that.
Don't ask me why that happened, but I found that very interesting. Is the government going to need what Nvidia and Palantir manufacture, possibly. So it's just something for you to think about and not get freaked about. All right, I was gonna talk to you a little bit about real estate, but I think I'm gonna hold that till next Sunday's Suze School.
And continue to see what's happening with it, but just to give you a little bit of a preview, which is, I don't think the real estate market is doing very good on any level, so just be careful before you jump in right now and buy a home. That's all I'm going to say at this point in time. So there's two things that I just want you to consider.
I want you again to consider what's happening with interest rates. Again, Allliant customers don't miss the opportunity that's there for you if you have a certificate of deposit that is maturing in the month of March 2025 and you want to renew it, you best think about the offer that they're making you because I think it's a pretty great offer number one.
And also the stock market just understand why it's doing what it's doing, but overall I still think that many stocks, as well as the overall markets are still going to go up this year, but time will tell. So until Thursday, there's only one thing that I want you to remember when it comes to your money, and it's this people first, then money, then things. Now you stay safe. Bye-bye. We are.