Natalie Pace Blogs
Photo of Natalie Pace by Marie Commiskey. Avalon Photography.
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 Will Oil Prices Sink or Soar? Executives are Uncertain. In the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Energy Survey released on March 26, 2025, oil executives largely expected oil prices to stay where they are this year – at $68/barrel. However, the range of projections was quite broad, with $50/barrel on the low end and $100/barrel at the top. Uncertainty was the most popular word in the anonymous survey comments, with one respondent writing, “I have never felt more uncertainty about our business in my entire 40-plus-year career.” Will “Drill Baby Drill” and $50/barrel become a reality in the coming months, or will some unexpected shock send prices sky high? Is forecasting really that complicated? Consumers want lower prices, but what do the Gulf States want? Would $50/barrel oil sink the industry? Below are the topics we’ll cover in this blog. Supply and Demand Breakeven Price of Oil Low/High Forecast: $50-$100/Barrel Plastic, Polyester and Other Oil Products Geopolitical Uncertainty Investing in Oil and Gas And here is more information on each point. Supply and Demand Oil prices are subject to supply and demand. After 9.11.2001, when the U.S. began fighting two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq), prices began to rise and eventually peaked at the all-time high of $145.31/barrel on July 3, 2008. At the other end of the spectrum, during the lockdowns of the pandemic, oil prices went negative, to -$37.63/barrel. Traders were paying to have someone assume their futures contracts because they couldn’t store all of the oil they were about to take delivery of!  The United States has been the world's top producer of natural gas since 2009, when U.S. natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and it has been the world's top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when its production exceeded Saudi Arabia’s (source EIA.gov). The U.S. trade balance “with members of OPEC shifted from a deficit of $50.0 billion in 2014 to a surplus of $6.6 billion in 2015” (source: BEA.gov). As you can see in the chart below, the U.S. produced more oil than it consumed in 2023. Having said that, the market is global. When the U.S. needs oil abroad (to fight a war, for instance), it imports from OPEC and Saudi Arabia, rather than ship the crude around the world. As more and more drivers switch to electric vehicles, this reduces the demand side. China’s rapid switch to EVs is one of the reasons why prices are still under $70/barrel. The fewer times we visit the gas pump, the more downward pressure we put on prices. Did you know that most people can save $8,500 or more annually by giving up their car? The cost of taking a ride-share or taxi, renting a car here or there (with non-owner insurance) is a fraction of what we pay to be a car owner, when you consider car payments, insurance, maintenance, parking, registration and fuel. Riding a bike and walking improves our physical health as well. If you’re not ready to give up the vehicle yet (or even reduce it to one per family), at least try walking or riding a bike for local errands. I gave up my car years ago, and began walking, riding a bike or taking public transportation for 90% of my needs. I’m writing this blog from Rome. Financial freedom awaits those who extricate themselves from being buried alive in bills. Reduced demand should lower prices. Breakeven Price of Oil According to the Dallas Fed Survey, “Firms need $65 per barrel on average to profitably drill [a new well] … [ranging] from $61 to $70 per barrel” depending on the size of the firm and the location. Tariffs on steel might curtail completion of new wells due to increased costs and thin margins at the current oil price of $69.60/barrel (WTI). Lowering the price of gasoline at the pump requires increased supply, which producers won’t do if they are losing money. (We've seen OPEC and other oil producers cut production to drive up prices in the past.) As the survey respondents pointed out, the cost of drilling is inconsistent with $50/barrel oil. One anonymous respondent to the survey explained, “The threat of $50 oil prices by the administration has caused our firm to reduce its 2025 and 2026 capital expenditures. ‘Drill, baby, drill’ does not work with $50 per barrel oil. Rigs will get dropped, employment in the oil industry will decrease, and U.S. oil production will decline as it did during COVID-19.” All the companies examined in our Oil Stock Report Card showed lower revenue year over year and most had profit margins under 10%. As Conoco Phillips stated in their annual earnings report, “Prices and margins in our industry have historically been volatile and are driven by market conditions over which we have no control.” (Wars increase prices. Lockdowns cause prices to plunge. Demand is decreasing as drivers switch to EVs.) Email [email protected] if you’d like an updated Oil Stock Report Card. Low/High Forecast: $50-$100/Barrel The near-term forecasting done by the industry experts tends to just follow what the current price is, probably because no one knows what the next shock to the industry will be and which way it will take prices. Oil executives are forecasting that oil prices will increase to $74/barrel in two years and $82/barrel in five years – headed in the opposite direction of what consumers and The White House want. High gas prices have a strong correlation with recessions, largely because almost 70% of the U.S. economy is based on consumer spending. Consumers lose confidence in the economy and cut back on spending when so much of the budget goes for gasoline. Fitch Ratings is projecting $70/barrel oil in 2025 and $65/barrel in 2026. Plastic, Polyester and Other Oil Products One of the ways that the oil industry is protecting itself from reduced demand, due to the rise of electric vehicles and clean energy, is to pivot more into other oil products, such as plastic, polyester, vinyl, rubber and asphalt. According to As You Sow’s report at ExxonMobil’s 2024 Annual Meeting, “ExxonMobil is the world’s largest producer of single-use plastic resins and continues to expand its production of virgin plastics despite both the likelihood of single-use plastic demand reduction and recent analyst projections of global polyethylene and polypropylene overcapacity.” Plastic is everywhere (even in our clothes and laundry sheets). Many of us are in constant contact with this petrochemical. The rise of fast fashion is another product of Big Oil. Reports are that companies like Shein have 76% of their clothing made with polyester (oil-based fibers that also leech microplastics into our oceans and water supply). Many oil and gas companies also vertically integrate at least some of the polyester supply chain (beyond the source: oil). India’s wealthiest billionaire is a polyester/oil executive. Polyester is bad for our health, for our oceans, our fresh water and so much more. (Please purchase natural fiber clothing and nix the idea of constant shopping.) Learn more in my Fast Fashion blog.  Geopolitical Uncertainty On January 23, 2025, at the World Economic Forum, the 47th U.S. President asked OPEC and Saudi Arabia to lower oil costs (by increasing production). “If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately,” he said. Oil and gas make up to 30% of Russia’s revenues. An end to the war in Gaza could also be positive for lower gas and oil prices, particularly if auto owners continue to reduce demand. Oil prices dropped from $145.31/barrel on July 3, 2008, to $37.77/barrel on January 13, 2009. This partially had to do with the election of 44th President, who ran on a platform of ending the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. However, an even bigger factor was the global financial crisis of the Great Recession. Unemployment soared to 7.9% on average in 2009. Consumers were constrained. Travel was a luxury many couldn’t afford. If you lost your job, you weren’t commuting to work or taking vacations. Demand for oil and gasoline dropped and prices plunged.  Investing in the Oil and Gas Industry ExxonMobil, Chevron and Conoco Phillips are trading close to their 5-year highs. They pay a yield of 3-4%. However, share prices are volatile in this industry. If oil prices do indeed drop, as the current Administration desires, oil companies will go into the red and investors will watch their share prices lose money. Our best protection against the price volatility of this industry is to rebalance 1-3 times a year to capture gains and to ensure that our wealth plan is age-appropriate and properly diversified. Doing that now would equate to capturing gains near the high. (This is something we teach at our Financial Freedom Retreat.) Due to elevated equity prices (in most U.S. companies), lower expectations for U.S. GDP growth, massive debt in U.S. corporations and a few other economic factors, we are using country diversification as substitutes for our value funds. (Oil is often found in large value funds.) Some of our substitutions offer a higher yield, while others offer higher credit quality. Bottom Line Oil Executives are not a fan of “Drill Baby Drill” populism or tariffs. Some have curtailed capital spending (no more new wells). One comment was, “Our ability to plan operations for any meaningful amount of time in the future has been severely diminished.” This is negative for lower oil and gas prices because there is no incentive to increase supply. Meanwhile, the increasing popularity of electric vehicles is reducing demand, while plastic becomes ever more prolific and fast fashion polyester runs rampant. In other words, there are many factors that are pulling on the tug-of-war between $50/barrel oil (which the oil industry clearly doesn’t want) and $100/barrel oil (which consumers can’t afford). As consumers, we hold more cards than most of us realize. If we visit the pump less, walk and bike more, refuse plastic, and buy natural fiber clothing (instead of oil-based polyester), we can dramatically lower demand and achieve the prices we all desire. Of course, that might put the oil companies into debt restructuring, as happened during the pandemic. According to Haynes Boone, between 2015 and 2021, there were over 600 oil and gas company bankruptcy filings. (This is another reason to capture gains now if you are an investor and consider a value substitution fund.) Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. (With just nine rooms available, this exclusive, private, bucket-list adventure sells out a year in advance!) Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. The 2025 Restormel Retreat was a magical and royal experience. Click to learn more. Your friends and family can get the best price for the April 25-27, 2025 Retreat when they register together. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. Learn how to: * Invest in hot industries, such as Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, * Hedge against a weaker dollar, * Invest and compound your gains, * Green your retirement plan, * Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies, * Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto), * Evaluate stocks, * Avoid capital gains and financial predators, * Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and, * Know what's safe in a Debt World. You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. "Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.  Join us for our Online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and eight private, prosperity coaching sessions. There are only 9 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, you're receiving a 70% discount to learn the life math that we all should have received in high school, and the room free! Email [email protected] to learn more. The best rooms at the 2025 retreat were sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start transforming our lives now!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden. Check out Natalie Pace's Substack podcast on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Health Savings Accounts. Save Thousands. Get a Tax Credit. Provide for Tomorrow's Healthcare Needs. Restormel Manor House 2025. A Truly Royal and Magical Adventure. 9 Ways to Cut Your Tax Bill in Half and Save Thousands Annually. Berkshire Hathaway. Should I Just Invest in Warren Buffett? Should I Have a Money Manager? The Cleanest Cities in the World. Can Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Gaza Become Edens? Rebuilding Gaza. American Companies Will Benefit. Top Dividend/Income Strategies for 2025. 2025 Crystal Ball: Who Will be the Superstars of Wall Street? Gold & Crypto IRAs and the Risk of Fraud and Losses. 10 Rules of Successful Investing. Quantum Computing. Paper Losses. Another Warning About Long-Term Bonds! 2025 Investor IQ Test. 2025 Investor IQ Test Answers. Apple iPhone Sales Plunge in China. Indonesia: Rich in Nickel with Ambitions of Becoming an EV Battery Hub. RoboTaxis. AI. The Magnificent 7. Charitable Giving. Nonprofits that are Worthy of Supporting. The DJIA Plunged 1100 Points After the Dec. 2024 FOMC Meeting. Why Are So Many Safe Investments Losing Money? A Bargain-Priced AI Company. Canadian, Australian and U.S. Banks. Are Any of Them Safe? Ireland. Rich in Technology, Biotechnology and Agribusiness. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sweepstakes. Robo Investing and AI. No, They are Not Foolproof. Stocks Soar as Nvidia Joins the DJIA. Copper. Peru ETF Outperforms the S&P500. 4 Ways to Celebrate World Sustainability Day, Oct. 30, 2024. Will There be a Santa Rally or will the Election Ruin Everything? Will Insurance Companies & Homeowners Weather the Hurricanes? 9 Money Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Housing & Budgeting Solutions. Arkansas Sues Temu for Data Theft. We Must Be the Boss of Our Money. Why? Fast Fashion. Fossil Fuels. Plastic Clothing. Atacama Desert Waste Dumps. Can Crowdstrike Recover from its Colossal Catastrophe? Featuring a Cybersecurity Overview. Fintechs and Brokerages that Fail are Not FDIC-Insured. 5 Green Tips for Clean Beaches Week. So, You Think You Want to Be a B&B Owner... Retiring Soon? Start Planning Now. 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. Answers to the 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. May is National Bike Month. Paris and Amsterdam are the Stars. Vacations that Color Our World Forever. 9 Inflation, Budgeting, Debt Reduction and Investing Solutions. China & Russia Double Their Gold Holdings. 2024 Investment of the Year? Bitcoin Sets a New Record High. The Importance of Rebalancing. Uh. Oh. More Bank Trouble. Housing. Unaffordable. What Works? Case studies and creative solutions. The Underperforming DJIA, Full of Fossil Fuels and Forever Chemicals. The Best ROI* (Almost 40%!) & 7 Life Hacks That Save Thousands. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. Save Thousands Annually With Smarter Energy Choices Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? Money Market Funds, FDIC, SIPC: Are Any of Them Safe? My 24-Year-Old is Itching to Buy a Condo. Should I Help Him? The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Important Disclaimers Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations. ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.
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 Health Savings Account. Where Does This Go in the Budget? Investors Ask Natalie. On the basis of the Thrive Budget, what slice of the pie is an HSA in, and at what percentage? Signed, Looking to Thrive, Instead of Feeling Buried Alive in Bills Dear Healthy, Wealthy and Wise, Health insurance is definitely on the basic needs side of the Thrive Budget because health insurance, taxes, food, lodging, transportation, debt repayment – all the costs and responsibilities of living in the modern world go there. The Thrive side is very easy:
If you haven’t already mocked up your own personalized Thrive Budget, email [email protected] for a link to our free web app. While the cost of health insurance is part of your survival plan, the Health Savings Account is a retirement plan, on the Thrive side of the budget, in the “pay yourself first and invest in a tax-protected retirement account” slice. In terms of percentage, there is a cap on the annual contribution: $4,300 if you are single and $8,550 for families. (This could increase in the coming years.) If you are on Medicare, you no longer qualify to contribute but could substantially benefit from the HSA if you have already accumulated a lot in that account. This is one of the reasons why it is important to start an HSA with our first job. The HSA is the best long-term healthcare plan. Instead of paying premiums for supplemental Medicare, we could have a cache of money that can be used for health care costs that won’t disappear if we can’t make the monthly payment. In the event we don’t need to use all the funds, the HSA money will go to our designated beneficiary. An HSA can also help to lower costs on the survive side. We must purchase a high-deductible health insurance plan to qualify for the HSA, which lowers the premiums dramatically from a low-deductible plan. Many people report savings of thousands annually. Some save tens of thousands. That’s a lot of money that is now available for investing, charity, education and fun – things most of us like a lot more than paying bills. We also receive a tax credit (which can be used even if we do not itemize) for the contribution to our HSA. Essentially, with an HSA, we stop making the health insurance company and the taxman rich at our own expense. Health savings accounts work best when we are healthy and let the money accumulate and start compounding gains (through investing) instead of dipping into it constantly for every office visit. It’s a great idea to save up three years of our total out-of-pocket costs in cash or short-term (high-quality) fixed-income investments before taking on more risk (equities), so that in the event of an unexpected illness or accident, we can cover our high deductible and co-pays without selling stock. While we’re saving up, the funds will be part of the safe side of our nest egg pie chart. Once we start investing in stocks, we will have “at-risk” slices in our HSA, too. This will make more sense if you’ve attended my Financial Freedom Retreat and read The ABCs of Money, 6th edition. I discuss HSAs in my recent tax blog. Be sure to check that out. 9 Tax Tips to Cut Your IRS Bill in Half and Save Thousands Annually. Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. (With just nine rooms available, this exclusive, private, bucket-list adventure sells out a year in advance!) Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. Your friends and family can get the best price for the April 25-27, 2025 Retreat when they register together. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. Learn how to: * Invest in hot industries, such as Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, * Hedge against a weaker dollar, * Invest and compound your gains, * Green your retirement plan, * Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies, * Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto), * Evaluate stocks, * Avoid capital gains and financial predators, * Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and, * Know what's safe in a Debt World. You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. "Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.  Join us for our Online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and eight private, prosperity coaching sessions (value $3,200). There are only 9 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, you're paying to learn the life math that we all should have received in high school, and receiving the room for free. Email [email protected] to learn more. 2025 was sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start transforming our lives now!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden. Check out Natalie Pace's Substack podcast on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Restormel Manor House 2025. A Truly Royal and Magical Adventure. 9 Ways to Cut Your Tax Bill in Half and Save Thousands Annually. Berkshire Hathaway. Should I Just Invest in Warren Buffett? Should I Have a Money Manager? The Cleanest Cities in the World. Can Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Gaza Become Edens? Rebuilding Gaza. American Companies Will Benefit. Top Dividend/Income Strategies for 2025. 2025 Crystal Ball: Who Will be the Superstars of Wall Street? Gold & Crypto IRAs and the Risk of Fraud and Losses. 10 Rules of Successful Investing. Quantum Computing. Paper Losses. Another Warning About Long-Term Bonds! 2025 Investor IQ Test. 2025 Investor IQ Test Answers. Apple iPhone Sales Plunge in China. Indonesia: Rich in Nickel with Ambitions of Becoming an EV Battery Hub. RoboTaxis. AI. The Magnificent 7. Charitable Giving. Nonprofits that are Worthy of Supporting. The DJIA Plunged 1100 Points After the Dec. 2024 FOMC Meeting. Why Are So Many Safe Investments Losing Money? A Bargain-Priced AI Company. Canadian, Australian and U.S. Banks. Are Any of Them Safe? Ireland. Rich in Technology, Biotechnology and Agribusiness. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sweepstakes. Robo Investing and AI. No, They are Not Foolproof. Stocks Soar as Nvidia Joins the DJIA. Copper. Peru ETF Outperforms the S&P500. 4 Ways to Celebrate World Sustainability Day, Oct. 30, 2024. Will There be a Santa Rally or will the Election Ruin Everything? Will Insurance Companies & Homeowners Weather the Hurricanes? 9 Money Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Housing & Budgeting Solutions. Arkansas Sues Temu for Data Theft. We Must Be the Boss of Our Money. Why? Fast Fashion. Fossil Fuels. Plastic Clothing. Atacama Desert Waste Dumps. Can Crowdstrike Recover from its Colossal Catastrophe? Featuring a Cybersecurity Overview. Fintechs and Brokerages that Fail are Not FDIC-Insured. 5 Green Tips for Clean Beaches Week. So, You Think You Want to Be a B&B Owner... Retiring Soon? Start Planning Now. 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. Answers to the 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. May is National Bike Month. Paris and Amsterdam are the Stars. Vacations that Color Our World Forever. 9 Inflation, Budgeting, Debt Reduction and Investing Solutions. China & Russia Double Their Gold Holdings. 2024 Investment of the Year? Bitcoin Sets a New Record High. The Importance of Rebalancing. Uh. Oh. More Bank Trouble. Housing. Unaffordable. What Works? Case studies and creative solutions. The Underperforming DJIA, Full of Fossil Fuels and Forever Chemicals. The Best ROI* (Almost 40%!) & 7 Life Hacks That Save Thousands. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. Save Thousands Annually With Smarter Energy Choices Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? Money Market Funds, FDIC, SIPC: Are Any of Them Safe? My 24-Year-Old is Itching to Buy a Condo. Should I Help Him? The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Important Disclaimers Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations. ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.  Natalie Pace, H.M. Queen Diambi, Terri Quenzer, Gayle Gladstone at Watergate Bay Inn, Newquay, Cornwall, England. taken on Natalie Pace's iphone by Jo Ruxton, founder, Ocean Generation. Restormel Manorhouse 2025: A Truly Royal and Magical Adventure Our trip to the Restormel Manorhouse in Lostwithiel, Cornwall just before the Spring Equinox 2025 was one of the most magical and royal ever. I’m so grateful to the individuals and couples who joined me as my guests there. Check out some of the synchronistic and epic things that happened, as well as some of the learning lessons, in the blog below. For many people traveling there, this was the first time that they had ever been to Cornwall, England, and certainly the first time that they had stayed in a manorhouse that is owned by The Royal Family. For one week, we were living in the biggest house in the community on a private estate that is so exclusive many taxi drivers have no clue how to find it. Being in that role means that we must think differently than most of us ever have – to anticipate how our actions might benefit, inconvenience, or burden the community or our roommates. We want to understand the ripple effect of our actions, which is the basis of stewardship, which is what being the wealthiest person in the community is all about. It's a rare opportunity to live the dream, while also understanding firsthand the responsibilities that go along with the role. Below are some of the topics I’ll cover in this blog. H.M. Queen Diambi Magic on the Train Our 1st Walk to the Village of Lostwithiel Exploring the Private (and Expansive) Estate Cornwall’s M.P. At Asquith’s The Eden Project Nansladen Potluck Dinner and a Gift for H.M. that Rippled Around the World Restormel Kitchen Composting, Walking, No Plastic & Recycling Tea at the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery & Cafe Nothing is Free (even if you think it is) Lessons Learned There are 1 Million Questions And here is more information on each topic. H.M. Queen Diambi We were honored to host H.M. Queen Diambi in the Trinity wing of the Restormel Manorhouse. She was accompanied by Gayle Gladstone, the CEO of Waterside Productions. Having a Queen staying with us offered constant lessons of grace, wisdom and the power and currency of a smile. In every photo of Her Majesty that you see in this blog, you’ll see that she’s smiling. Her essence is effervescence. Magic on the Train On the train ride into Lostwithiel from London Paddington, we were seated in a car with a businessman. He immediately offered to help us with our luggage. I went over to thank him, and within five minutes, discovered that he lived in Nansladen. That synchronistic meeting led to his son Thomas guiding a tour of the Nansladen school for H.M. Queen Diambi. Thank you, James, for all that you did to make our trip to Nansladen so special, and also for joining us at the meet and greet at Asquith’s restaurant.  James Stanger, H.M. Queen Diambi, Thomas Stanger. Photo by: Natalie Pace. (c) 2025 Our 1st Walk to the Village of Lostwithiel After our check in and champagne toast, most of us took the 25-minute walk to Lostwithiel for our dinner at The Globe Inn. Some of the areas were lit by streetlamps, while others were dark. We used our Flashlight app on our phones. Many people raved about the food – a particular hit was the pie and mash. Exploring the Private (and Expansive) Estate After breakfast on Saturday, many of the attendees went on a walking exploration of the private estate with me. From almost every direction, you can see Restormel Castle just up the hill, which you can visit throughout most of the year. The structure of this medieval castle bears witness to a time when Cornwall was thriving as the region’s home to the 1st Prince of Wales (in the 14th Century). It has been a key asset of the Duchy of Cornwall since that time (though English Heritage runs the tours). There is also an ancient tree close by that is dedicated to The Queen‘s Green Canopy.  Restormel Castle. Photo by Natalie Pace. Forest bathing, birdsong, babbling brooks, with lambs lounging in the expansive meadows are just some of the ways that Mother Nature slows down time and nurtures us on the Restormel estate. See some of the reels I created at https://www.instagram.com/nataliewynnepace. Cornwall’s M.P. At Asquith’s Our Lostwithiel guardian angel, Suzette Dawson, arranged for Anna Gelderd, the Member of Parliament for South East Cornwall, to have a special meet and greet with H.M. Queen Diambi and our group.  H.M. Queen Diambi with M.P. Anna Gelderd for SE Cornwall at Asquith's Restaurant, Lostwithiel. March 8, 2025. Photo by Natalie Pace. We were also joined by the Lostwithiel Mayor and Vice Mayor. I was pleased to be able to have a very engaging conversation with M.P. Gelderd, who is such an informed and passionate advocate for sustainability, with a powerful voice, as a member of Parliament. Who knows what lasting positive effects will transpire as a result of connecting Her Majesty and the M.P. Thank you, Suzette! Thank you Asquith’s for hosting this important meeting and serving Michelin star worthy meals. Personally, I had the best gnocchi I’ve ever had in my life! The Eden Project What an extraordinary place the Eden Project is! A picture is worth 1000 words as you can see from the short video that my Apple iPhone created from the pictures I took there. Click to watch that on Instagram. The CEO Andy Jasper is interested in pouring champagne in our veins about just how we can all be the change that our planet needs to continue offering us the sustenance that humans rely upon. It's an engaging, immersive experience that I highly recommend we all visit again and again.  H.M. Queen Diambi at the Eden Project's Eve Sculpture by Peter and Sue Hill. Photo by Natalie Pace.
Nansladen What a worthy example of sustainable development! Guided by the vision of H.R.H. The 24th Duke of Cornwall, this community in the seaside city of Newquay, is an exemplary living model that other communities can adopt to weave biking and walking, biodiversity, regenerative agriculture and landscaping, clean energy, community, affordable housing, and so much more into the fabric of the design. You can learn much more at nansladen.com. I also want to thank The Duchy of Cornwall team for introducing H.M. Queen Diambi and I to Jo Ruxton MBE, an award-winning filmmaker and the founder of Ocean Generation. We had a lovely cream tea with Jo at the Watergate Bay Inn, with stunning views of the famous surfing beaches of Newquay. Did you know that the ocean is responsible for every other breath we take and draws down 30% of the CO2? (I didn’t.) Jo’s award-winning documentary A Plastic Ocean was named by Sir David Attenborough as “one of the most important films of our time.” Ocean Generation is educating all of us on solutions. Learn more and support this organization at https://oceangeneration.org/. Potluck Dinner and a Gift for H.M. that Rippled Around the World At our potluck dinner, we each discussed a passion that we have. One of the more delightful and surprising things I learned was that Lostwithiel locals Kodzo and Adzoa Adabio are so passionate about sustainability and clean energy that they are building their own windmill. Their son, Marcus, was the artist whose delightful painting of an African water carrier had a ripple effect around the world.  H.M. Queen Diambi with Marcus Adabio. Photo by Helen Padilla. Used with permission. The winding process of having Marcus present his art gift to H.M. Queen Diambi began when Terri, one of our repeat attendees, was on the lookout for an ideal gift for our group to offer to H.M. Rather than purchase something off the shelf, we thought it would be even more special to find a unique one-of-a-kind item that was created in Lostwithiel. Kodzo and Adzoa are both renowned local artists, but their work was outside of our collective budget. However, their son Marcus is also a young upcoming artist. When Helen, one of the members of our group, approached Adzoa with the idea of creating something special for Her Majesty, Marcus jumped at the chance. We commissioned the gift and Marcus selected the perfect image for H.M. The water carrier is a symbol of sustenance, eternal life and magical protection. However, the stardust didn’t stop with the gift. Marcus then used a portion of his renumeration to donate to one of his friends in Ghana, Seth, to support his university education. Seth is in his 1st year of studying agriculture. Of course, we encourage Seth to learn about the power of Regenerative Agriculture by watching the Soil & Health episode of our Earth Gratitude docuseries, and by joining the global streaming watch party of Common Ground and Kiss the Ground on April 22nd on Amazon Prime. You can see a short Instagram reel that I created about this magical moment @NatalieWynnePace. Editor's note: Would you like to join us for this exclusive adventure in 2027? Register now to receive a year of prosperity, abundance, sustainability and financial freedom training now, so that you can fully embrace and benefit from the adventure! You’ll also receive a $500 discount, eight 50-minute prosperity coaching sessions (value $3,200) and your choice of the best room and wing in the home. Visit the Spring Equinox 2027 Restormel Retreat flyer at NataliePace.com to learn more now, including pricing information. This once-in-a-lifetime experience is far more affordable than you might imagine, particularly if you use some of our travel hacks. Email [email protected] to get your questions answered and to register. With only 9 rooms available, most of the rooms sell out a year in advance. Restormel Kitchen Restormel Kitchen is another delightful, award-winning restaurant in the village of Lostwithiel. (Really love The Mess Hall and Bellamama, too.) Mmmm. Mushroom Veloute. Scallops. Rhubarb and apple crumble… Still tasting these treats. It’s astonishing that a little hamlet (Lostwithiel) with a population of less than 3,000 that dates back to 1100 (such history here!) has so many excellent food options (that are very affordable given the high quality). During my previous visit in 2023, Chef Jordan Cook served me the best pea risotto that I’ve ever had. Tea at the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery & Café Our group wandered along the footpath up to the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery & Café for a cream tea. This is yet another destination that is easier to get to on foot, and just as fast as driving. The café has a lovely Orangery, a cute store stocked with treasures and a stunning view of the valley. Be sure to go through the nursery of plants, to the top of the hill, to take pictures of the vista.  View from the Duchy of Cornwall Nursery and Cafe, Lostwithiel, England. Photo by Natalie Pace. Suzette asked me to remind everyone to shop in Lostwithiel and support the local artisans, merchants and shopkeepers. So, wander the streets and shops for keepsakes to take home of this unique experience. A tour of Lostwithiel with a local guide is also a delight. Composting, Walking, No Plastic & Recycling How many of us have gone a week without driving? How many of us eat on plastic flatware, throw our food in the trash, where it stinks and then creates methane gas in a landfill? Are we aware that recycling is the least effective of all the six Rs of sustainability, since less than 9% of plastic gets recycled and plastic is an oil product – not sustainably produced either? Sustainability is interwoven into the fabric of the Restormel Royal Manorhouse experience because T.R.H. The 24th and The 25th Dukes of Cornwall are informed and proactive about green solutions. These experiences are built in, with no thinking or adjusting required. It’s often easier to walk. The plates are ceramic. Food delivery comes without all the produce covered in plastic. The sheets and blankets are all made from natural fibers. (Polyester is an oil product.) One of the reasons I host this retreat is to immerse us in forest bathing, walking for local errands, composting, and to understand, by living the experience, how to be outstanding stewards of wealth and of our home planet. A big bonus is that the air quality at Restormel is the best I’ve ever encountered in the world (science, not an exaggeration). Every breath you take is invigorating. Now that you know, you’ll breathe even more deeply and perhaps with an extra spring in your step when you join me for our Spring Equinox 2027 return! Nothing is Free (even if you think it is) I’ve discovered that thinking someone is giving us something for free is a very American mindset that is not necessarily shared in other countries around the world. In fact, if you believe that you are getting comped (without carefully listening to what the person is saying), you might find yourself in serious trouble. One person narrowly avoided getting booted off a train, could have received a serious fine, and only saved herself when she ponied up the cash for the proper train ticket. We’ll never know why the clerk didn’t charge her and ticket her properly. Another person thought they got a free ride in a cab. However, the taxi driver simply said that he’d put it on the bill, which meant that the next person in our group to use the service was the one who would get stuck paying for her trip. Bosses don’t let their employees give out freebies. If an employee comps something, they might have to pay for it out of their own salary, which is pretty modest. So, it’s important to ditch this very American idea and to understand that living in the biggest house in the community means everyone thinks you’re rich. If anything, they are hoping that you’ll buy more (rather than get a free ride). And even though England is a country that doesn’t have tipping in the culture, because they know many of us are Americans, some individuals will hope you do slip them something extra, while others will refuse, if you offer. Lessons Learned One of the most valuable lessons that I learned is that I need to do a better job of preparing our Restormel attendees about the responsibilities and assumptions that go along with being the “rich folk.” Our actions have ripple effects throughout the community, especially in one that is as economically challenged as Cornwall is – particularly in the shoulder season. (There was a positive ripple effect in the gift we chose for H.M.) It’s a great idea to comport ourselves in the same way that a billionaire CEO or a royal would, and ask ourselves constantly, “How will my action impact the individual who is helping me or serving me and the larger community?” (Imagine the experiential lessons we can learn that we can apply to our own leadership skills by doing this!) When we consider the bigger picture – that we want the shopkeepers, taxi drivers and restaurant owners to thrive so that they can continue serving us – we don’t want freebies because we know that far too many people in the area are living on a tight budget, in challenging circumstances, with low profit margins. I spend two years planning this event. I personally rent out the biggest house on the largest private estate in the region, and then invite a few guests to my home for the week, who have been prepared (with quarterly panning meetings) to create a positive and uplifting experience for one another. The ethos of being a guest in that situation is unique. Since my ties are strong with the people in the community, the actions of my guests reflect directly on me. It might be the first time (at least in a while) when we have to live in a community setting. Since we’re living with roommates, it’s considerate to keep the common areas clean and tidy. Eating should be done at a kitchen table or in the dining room (not the sitting rooms). You don’t have to attend anything, but if you have ordered food or confirmed a taxi, don’t cancel at the last minute. (Uber won’t even allow you to stiff the driver.) If you have signed up for a group event, please be on time (dinners, the talent show and the Financial Freedom Game, etc.) On the last day (Thursday), everyone is going to want to use the washer and dryer, so it's important to empty them out spot on, so the next person can wash and dry! A little forethought and consideration makes everything run so much more smoothly. There are 1 Million Questions There seems to be a question around every corner. We’re staying in a home that is 500 years old! Why isn’t the water hotter? (The person in your wing who just showered used up all of the hot water. Tanks take time to reheat.) How do I flush this toilet? (Hold down the handle for a few seconds. You might have to do this twice.) When will the taxi arrive? How long is the walk to the Duchy Nursery or Lanhydrock? (Listed in this blog and the resources, but it might take longer, if you get lost, which seems to happen a lot.) Why isn’t the Wi-Fi working? (This is the countryside! The Wifi is spotty! We’re here for forest bathing and nature walks.) Where's the garbage? (Look in the manual or take a short walk to find it.) I’ve been to Restormel 4-5 times and have assembled an extensive resources list for the attendees to make everything go much more smoothly than it did the first or second time that I visited the area. There is also a very detailed house manual. Having said that, not all of the questions will get answered. Some must be explored or experienced. For instance, it’s very common to get lost on the walking path to Lanhydrock if you’ve never taken it before. GPS doesn't work as well on the private pathways. So even though it is an hour walk each way for someone who knows the path, your experience and results are highly likely to vary. All the attendees who took that path in 2023 got lost, including yours truly! Some people found it very stressful when they did. Your best bet to avoid getting lost is to go with a local or someone who has walked the path before (which is not guaranteed) or just take a taxi there. I’m Here to Inspire and Mentor Many times, since my to-do list during the retreat is quite long, my walks are impromptu – not planned in advance. However, I do inform the group on Whatsapp when these opportunities pop up. I know many of the secrets of the area, so the stroll might include visiting the ancient tree in The Queen’s Green Canopy or a secret pathway, many of which are just steps from the manorhouse. Sometimes I may wish to take a walk in silence, even if I’m next to someone, so I can hear the wildlife and birdsong. You might find those trips even more informative than if we talked. You are a guest at my home for the week. I’m happy to be a mentor and to facilitate a grander vision and the lessons that can be learned in such a delicious way in that setting. However, the experience is really intended to be immersive (living in the moment, breathing in the pristine air deeply, observing things in nature, not just talking inside a dwelling). In 2025, hosting H.M. was one of the ways that guests were exposed to how leaders comport themselves. We all had the privilege of living with H.M. for the week and of meeting the Cornwall M.P. It required a great deal of planning and work before and during the retreat. Each retreat will have a special person, place or event for our retreat attendees to experience. Of course, your presence and positive attitude are a big part of creating a memorable, life-changing week. Having spent more than two decades learning from high-profile individuals about sustainability and financial freedom, I have some wisdom that I’m happy to share during our two evening firesides. The resources list and the manor house guide are intended to answer the quotidian manor house questions (not me personally). There are ample suggestions on things to do and how to do them in the resources guide. Please consult your roommates and the guides and use me as a last resource for mundane questions (at a reasonable time, not before 9 am, and not during our champagne toast or while we are playing the Financial Freedom Game). If the Wi-Fi is out at 6:30 a.m., take it as a reminder that we’re here to experience things in person that we can’t experience online, like the smell of pristinely clean air and getting a little lost from our daily routine. (Since I have so many things to coordinate throughout the retreat, chances are I already know about the outage and am waiting until 9 AM when the office staff arrives to get them to fix it.) This is a rural setting. The Wi-Fi is spotty, and it goes out sometimes. Thank goodness. Let it prompt us to step away from virtual reality and our to-do list and drink in the dreams of our natural world outside. Clearly in the event of an emergency, I do wish to be alerted right away. Bottom Line Our Restormel Royal Manorhouse Retreat is truly a once-in-a-lifetime adventure that can inform every footstep we take, and have positive ripple effects for our lives, our families, our communities and may even touch someone on the other side of the world. Join us for a magical experience for Spring Equinox 2027! Register now to ensure you get the training that will enhance your experience. (Your registration includes two 12-month all-access passes to all of our online training and other gifts.) Register by Sept. 30, 2025 to receive $500 off, eight private prosperity coaching sessions and your choice of the best room/wing. Visit the Restormel flyer on the home page of NataliePace.com. Email [email protected] to register now. Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. (With just nine rooms available, this exclusive, private, bucket-list adventure sells out a year in advance!) Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. Your friends and family can get the best price for the April 25-27, 2025 Retreat when they register together. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. Learn how to: * Invest in hot industries, such as Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, * Hedge against a weaker dollar, * Invest and compound your gains, * Green your retirement plan, * Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies, * Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto), * Evaluate stocks, * Avoid capital gains and financial predators, * Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and, * Know what's safe in a Debt World. You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. "Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.  Join us for our Online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and eight private, prosperity coaching sessions (value $3,200). There are only 9 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, you're paying to learn the life math that we all should have received in high school, and receiving the room for free. Email [email protected] to learn more. 2025 was sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start transforming our lives now!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden. Check out Natalie Pace's Substack podcast on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. 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Answers to the 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. May is National Bike Month. Paris and Amsterdam are the Stars. Vacations that Color Our World Forever. 9 Inflation, Budgeting, Debt Reduction and Investing Solutions. China & Russia Double Their Gold Holdings. 2024 Investment of the Year? Bitcoin Sets a New Record High. The Importance of Rebalancing. Uh. Oh. More Bank Trouble. Housing. Unaffordable. What Works? Case studies and creative solutions. The Underperforming DJIA, Full of Fossil Fuels and Forever Chemicals. The Best ROI* (Almost 40%!) & 7 Life Hacks That Save Thousands. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. Save Thousands Annually With Smarter Energy Choices Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? Money Market Funds, FDIC, SIPC: Are Any of Them Safe? My 24-Year-Old is Itching to Buy a Condo. Should I Help Him? The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Important Disclaimers Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations. ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.  9 Tips to Cut Your Tax Bill in Half and Save Thousands Annually. A lot of you have heard me say, “Stop making everyone else rich, including the tax man, the debt collector, the landlord, the gas station, the utility company, the insurance salesman, etc.” Tax season is the perfect time to start keeping more of your dough, which you can then use to invest (money while you sleep), to have more fun, and to buy things you like a lot more than the IRS. Even if you are taking the standard deduction, you’ll want to know about these strategies because many are tax credits that apply whether or not you itemize. Additionally, these strategies can also save us thousands annually in our budget. Below are 9 tips to start on the path. 9 Tips to Stop Making the Tax Man Rich! These tips will help you put your best leg forward on the path to financial freedom. See the list below for what applies to you, and then details on each tax credit/deduction below the list. 1. Health Savings Accounts. 2. IRA Contributions. 3. Mortgage Interest Deduction 4. Student Loan Interest Deduction. 5. Qualified Education Expenses. 6. Energy Efficiency and Clean Power Tax Credits. 7. Charitable Contributions. 8. Capital Gains 9. Facing an Audit or Tax Levy? 1. Health Savings Accounts. Are you young and healthy, spending an arm and a leg on health insurance, while using natural cures that aren’t even covered by insurance? HSAs are one way to increase your personal net worth and save thousands annually in health insurance premiums and taxes. With a qualified high-deductible health insurance plan, the HSA ensures that we are giving much less to Uncle Sam AND the health insurance company. Health Savings Accounts work best for healthy people. An HSA, combined with a high deductible health insurance, could save you thousands of dollars in insurance premiums each year. The IRS offers an annual tax credit of $4,150 for individuals (and $8,300 for families), which can be invested for tax-free gains. (This increases to $4,300 and $8,550, respectively, in 2025.) The tax benefit is available even if you don’t itemize deductions. To learn more, visit IRS.Gov and enter Health Savings Accounts in the search box. NOTE that opening an HSA with a brokerage could offer you more investment options than opening the account with an insurance company or bank. 2. IRA Contributions: You can still contribute to your IRA and receive credit for 2024, up until April 15, 2025. (Roth IRAs are not tax deductible.) Retirement accounts are a great place for our investments (rather than just a brokerage account0 because they are rarely subject to capital gains taxes. Should you opt for a Roth, a traditional IRA or a SEP IRA? Most people earn more in their working years, when they can most benefit from the tax credit of the IRA, and less in their retirement years. However, we will have to pay income taxes on our traditional IRA when we start taking distributions, but not on our Roth IRA. Peter Thiel reportedly has over $5 billion in his Roth IRA (source: ProPublica). If you are self-employed, consider a SEP-IRA, where you might be able to sock away $60,000 each year (or 25% of your income, whichever is smaller). FYI: At our retreats, we encourage putting our hot investments in the Roth IRA (like very wealthy people do). Self-directed IRAs offer more freedom of choice in your investments than 401Ks, RSPs, 529Bs, etc. So, rather than just maxing out your employer-offered retirement plan, it’s a good idea to contribute up to the employer match, and then consider maxing out your HSA and personal IRA. We discuss this in greater detail at our Financial Freedom Retreats. 3. Mortgage Interest Deduction. Mortgage interest paid on a qualified first and second home can be deducted. Click to read the IRS rules. This is a huge tax deduction that allows us to stop making the landlord rich and pay less to the taxman. However, we must itemize deductions in order to qualify. Home prices on a nationwide basis are at all-time highs and are largely unaffordable, so it’s not a great idea to just race out and purchase. (Over 20 million homes were foreclosed on before, during and after the Great Recession.) However, there are opportunities for smart buyers to rethink their housing and to vision and prepare, so that they can create a win-win-win for themselves when the opportunities arise again. These are some of the tools we teach in our Real Estate Master Class. The next one will be June 14, 2025. You can also read case studies in the Real Estate section of The ABCs of Money, 6th edition.  4. Student Loan Interest Deduction. If paid on a student loan in 2024, you might be able to deduct up to $2,500 of the interest you paid. Take this IRS interview to determine your eligibility. 5. Qualified Education Expenses. You may be able to deduct education costs for yourself and/or a student in your immediate family. You may also be able to take an early distribution from an IRA without paying the early distribution penalty and additional taxes, if the withdrawal was made to cover a qualified education expense. And if the education is work-related, you may qualify for a Lifetime Learning Credit or a business deduction. 6. Energy Efficiency Credits. If you made energy-efficiency improvements to your home, you could qualify for up to $3,200 in tax credits. If you purchased an electric vehicle or installed solar or wind energy products, you could qualify for a generous tax credit. EV credits go up to $7,500 and wind/solar power products can be as high as 30 percent of the purchase price. The EV tax credit and the Residential Clean Energy Credit are both good through 2032. Certain rules apply to both, so be sure to visit the IRS pages and understand how to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. 7. Charitable Contributions. Your charitable contribution is tax deductible, provided it is made to a qualified 501c3. In addition to deducting your cash contributions, you generally can deduct the fair market value of any property you donate to qualified organizations. It is my experience that donating goods yields a better value in tax credits than you’d earn sitting all day through a yard sale. 8. Capital Gains. It’s important to do as much of our investing as possible in tax-protected retirement accounts. Doing so can eliminate capital gains taxes, which can be up to 37% for short-term capital gains. Did you know that you can even invest in real estate in your IRA? Email [email protected] to learn more. 9. Facing an Audit or Tax Levy? Hire an experienced, qualified accountant to review your case and communicate with the IRS on your behalf. As Wayne Layton, CPA, reminds us: From time to time the IRS may suspect an error on a tax return or underpayment of tax and send my clients a letter assessing additional tax, along with penalties and interest. Most taxpayers become fearful upon receiving these letters as some of them even refer to liens and levies. Out of fear, many people just write a check to the IRS. As I see it, the letters from the IRS are simply telling the taxpayer to pay or prove why you do not owe the balance. There are many times that, on behalf of my clients, I write a letter disagreeing with the IRS’s position, attaching proof of why the taxpayer does not owe the additional tax, and the additional tax assessed is either reduced or the balance is adjusted to zero. Sometimes the IRS will agree with the accountant and adjust the balance due. Other times, if there is a good reason, the IRS may waive the penalties. And, of course, there may be times when you have to pay everything the IRS claims is owed. Most importantly, do not simply write the check before discussing your options with a qualified Certified Public Accountant in a timely manner. Bottom Line You don’t need to itemize deductions to take a tax credit. Many of the above tax benefits are available whether or not we itemize, and almost all of them offer additional savings in health insurance costs, capital gains taxes, utility costs, housing, gasoline and more. The savings all told can be in the tens of thousands of dollars. We can live a much richer life when we learn how to keep more of our money and stop making the taxman and billionaire corporations rich at our own expense – just like very wealthy people do. Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. (With just nine rooms available, this exclusive, private, bucket-list adventure sells out a year in advance!) Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. Your friends and family can get the best price for the April 25-27, 2025 Retreat when they register together. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. Learn how to: * Invest in hot industries, such as Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, * Hedge against a weaker dollar, * Invest and compound your gains, * Green your retirement plan, * Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies, * Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto), * Evaluate stocks, * Avoid capital gains and financial predators, * Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and, * Know what's safe in a Debt World. You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. "Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.  Join us for our Online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and six private, prosperity coaching sessions (value $2,400). There are only 9 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, you're paying to learn the life math that we all should have received in high school, and receiving the room for free. Email [email protected] to learn more. 2025 was sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start transforming our lives now!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden. Check out Natalie Pace's Substack podcast on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Berkshire Hathaway. Should I Just Invest in Warren Buffett? Should I Have a Money Manager? The Cleanest Cities in the World. Can Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Gaza Become Edens? Rebuilding Gaza. American Companies Will Benefit. Top Dividend/Income Strategies for 2025. 2025 Crystal Ball: Who Will be the Superstars of Wall Street? Gold & Crypto IRAs and the Risk of Fraud and Losses. 10 Rules of Successful Investing. Quantum Computing. Paper Losses. Another Warning About Long-Term Bonds! 2025 Investor IQ Test. 2025 Investor IQ Test Answers. Apple iPhone Sales Plunge in China. Indonesia: Rich in Nickel with Ambitions of Becoming an EV Battery Hub. RoboTaxis. AI. The Magnificent 7. Charitable Giving. Nonprofits that are Worthy of Supporting. The DJIA Plunged 1100 Points After the Dec. 2024 FOMC Meeting. Why Are So Many Safe Investments Losing Money? A Bargain-Priced AI Company. Canadian, Australian and U.S. Banks. Are Any of Them Safe? Ireland. Rich in Technology, Biotechnology and Agribusiness. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sweepstakes. Robo Investing and AI. No, They are Not Foolproof. Stocks Soar as Nvidia Joins the DJIA. Copper. Peru ETF Outperforms the S&P500. 4 Ways to Celebrate World Sustainability Day, Oct. 30, 2024. Will There be a Santa Rally or will the Election Ruin Everything? Will Insurance Companies & Homeowners Weather the Hurricanes? 9 Money Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Housing & Budgeting Solutions. Arkansas Sues Temu for Data Theft. We Must Be the Boss of Our Money. Why? Fast Fashion. Fossil Fuels. Plastic Clothing. Atacama Desert Waste Dumps. Can Crowdstrike Recover from its Colossal Catastrophe? Featuring a Cybersecurity Overview. Fintechs and Brokerages that Fail are Not FDIC-Insured. 5 Green Tips for Clean Beaches Week. So, You Think You Want to Be a B&B Owner... Retiring Soon? Start Planning Now. 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. Answers to the 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. May is National Bike Month. Paris and Amsterdam are the Stars. Vacations that Color Our World Forever. 9 Inflation, Budgeting, Debt Reduction and Investing Solutions. China & Russia Double Their Gold Holdings. 2024 Investment of the Year? Bitcoin Sets a New Record High. The Importance of Rebalancing. Uh. Oh. More Bank Trouble. Housing. Unaffordable. What Works? Case studies and creative solutions. The Underperforming DJIA, Full of Fossil Fuels and Forever Chemicals. The Best ROI* (Almost 40%!) & 7 Life Hacks That Save Thousands. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. Save Thousands Annually With Smarter Energy Choices Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? Money Market Funds, FDIC, SIPC: Are Any of Them Safe? My 24-Year-Old is Itching to Buy a Condo. Should I Help Him? The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Important Disclaimers Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations. ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument. .jpg) Warren Buffett at the 2015 SelectUSA Investment Summit. Wiki Commons. Used with permission. Berkshire Hathaway: Should I Just Invest in the Icon? Investors Ask Natalie. Dear Natalie, Warren Buffett has proven himself to be one of the greatest investors of all time – a true GOAT. So, shouldn’t I just buy BRK.A or BRK.B and allow his magic to increase my wealth? Signed, Just Want to Make it Easy Dear It’s Only Easy When It Works, There is no question that Warren Buffett is a GOAT investor. However, having Berkshire Hathaway as your one and only love on Wall Street is not the best plan. There are many reasons why it’s a better idea to have an age-appropriate, diversified strategy that you rebalance 1-3 times a year. That plan is easy. It also earned gains in the Dot Com and Great Recessions and outperformed the bull markets in between. Berkshire Hathaway tends to shadow the S&P500, sinking when it plunges and rising when it recovers. BRK.A dropped by half during the Great Recession and financial crisis to $750/share on March 3, 2009, down from the previous all-time high of $149,200 (Dec. 10, 2007). Berkshire Hathaway was not one of the companies that was bailed out, and it still had a wipe-out. It took four years to crawl back to even – slightly sooner than the S&P500 (18 months). Didn’t everything take that long to recover? No. At the bottom of the Great Recession, some of our ETFs were super performers… The iShares Chile ETF (ECH) rocketed off a low of under $30/share to $80/share between Dec. 2008 and Dec. 2010, for gains of 167%. The iShares Australia ETF (EWA) scored similar gains (143%) over the two-year period. Having a slice or two of something that is hot adds performance to our plan. Those two natural resources rich countries performed better than financials and insurance in the wake of the developed world’s financial crisis. (Our analysis revealed this strength in time for our readers and retreat attendees to take action.) Having an age-appropriate, diversified plan that we rebalance 1-3 times a year is important because if we just own one thing, we might think that one company is the problem, especially if we see gold, crypto, copper or another industry/company shooting the moon. We might be tempted to sell low, just as now you’re tempted to buy Berkshire Hathaway at an all-time high right now because the story is slightly more interesting than an S&P500 index fund. Many investors sell low in recessions. Our emotions prompt us to do the wrong thing in investing, until we master them with a solid plan. Here are the 10 things I’ll cover in this blog. Individual Companies vs. Funds Diversification Matters Warren Buffett is 94 years old The L.A. Fires and Berkshire Liability Berkshire Has a Lot of Cash on the Sidelines Losses of $22.8 Billion in 2022 Bull Markets Bear Markets Country Diversification Dollar Cost Averaging (vs. Buying High) What’s Your Rebalancing Plan? And here is more information on each point. Individual Companies vs. Funds Anytime we invest in one company instead of a fund (many companies), we are putting ourselves at greater risk. Boeing is the most recent example – a company that has lost -57% in share price since its highs of 2019, at a time when Wall Street has been on fire. However, there have been plenty of other examples of Wall Street darlings for performance or dividends, where that trajectory reverses direction and plunges before investors can react. It’s called a gap down. Click for a history lesson of General Electric (a former dividend darling), Boeing and more. Because individual companies are more vulnerable, investors must have their radar up on the news and should be conducting frequent analysis on the forward trajectory. (There’s guaranteed to be bad news for Berkshire in the coming years when Warren Buffett passes.) Keeping up to date requires a lot of work and expertise. When we have a fund, the number of companies smooths out the volatility of any one component. If you don’t have the extra time and experience to evaluate your holdings, or if you’re trying to make things easy, funds are a more appropriate choice than putting all of your eggs in one company. Diversification Matters Having said that, it’s better to diversify into 10 funds than to just purchase SPY. The above examples of Chile and Australia illustrate that, as does the extraordinary performance of Bitcoin over the past two years.  It’s also important to remember that without the spectacular gains of the Magnificent 7*, the S&P500 would have performed at half the speed. (Click on the blue-highlighted words to learn more.) Berkshire’s impressive gains pale in comparison to many of our trillion-dollar technology companies, which is why we want to have large cap growth stocks (Nvidia, AI, technology), in addition to large cap value (Berkshire Hathaway, financials+). *Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, Tesla  Berkshire Hathaway (blue) versus Nvidia (pink) over the last 3 years. MSN.com/Money. (c) Microsoft. Used with permission. Value might offer stability if stocks were on sale and dividends were offering us income without compromising our principal investment. With U.S. stocks at an all-time high and value stocks full of credit risk and low-yielding, we’re using international value replacement funds in our sample pie charts. (We talk about this in greater depth at our Financial Freedom Retreat.) Over half of the S&P500 is at or near junk status. Berkshire Hathaway has a great credit rating, at AA, but doesn’t pay a dividend. Berkshire has flat sales growth (1.65%), while the Fantastic 5 all have revenue growth of 10% (Amazon) to 78% (Nvidia). When we think of this in terms of what we are buying from the company, how much more insurance, ice cream or See’s Candy are we going to consume? Most of us are heavily reliant on technology, which is finding ever more ways to monetize our addiction. Value means “on sale,” however, Berkshire Hathaway is trading at an all-time high (expensive). Email [email protected] with Berkshire Hathaway and Magnificent 7 SRC in the subject line for updated Stock Report Cards. Having an age-appropriate, diversified plan that we rebalance 1-3 times a year is a “capture gains” plan that keeps our wealth growing in the bull markets and protected from the bears. As I mentioned above, our 2009 hot fund picks more than doubled within 24 months, while U.S. stocks took twice as long (or more) to recover lost ground. There are certain assets that will do better in the launchpad off the bottom. This is why we have four hot slices in our diversified wealth plan. At the top of the market, at a time when the economy is expected to slow down, investors might even consider a safe haven hedge for one or more of their hot slices, while overweighting a little more safe. In my recent interview with Howard Silverblatt, the senior index analyst of the S&P500, he encouraged investors to consider small caps which typically outperform large caps. Check out our Sample Pie Chart below.  Sample Pie Chart c/o NataliePace.com. This will make more sense if you read The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and attend our online Financial Freedom Retreat. Warren Buffett is 94 years old The man who built Berkshire Hathaway is 94 years old. While Warren Buffett has faith in Berkshire Hathaway’s C-Suite and succession plan, the executives have yet to prove themselves. You’re investing in a man who will not be a part of the strategy going forward. The L.A. Fires and Berkshire Liability Berkshire Hathaway is the largest property and casualty insurer in the U.S. According to their 2024 Annual Earnings Report, the company expects $1.3 billion in pre-tax losses due to the January 2025 wildfires in Southern California. This could start showing up in the 1st quarter 2025 earnings report, which will be released at the beginning of May. Wall Street moves fast and furious these days. A bad earnings report can tank a share price. Berkshire Hathaway Has a Lot of Cash on the Sidelines Stocks are expensive. So, it’s not a surprise that Warren Buffett’s company has a lot in cash and short-term treasuries, as he’s one of the most famous value investors of all time. It’s a reminder that we should all have an age-appropriate plan and the proper amount safe. Having a lot on the sidelines could also slow down the performance of Berkshire Hathaway stock going forward. Flat year over year revenue growth doesn’t get investors excited.  Losses of -$22.8 Billion in 2022 Insurance companies can have very volatile earnings reports and tend to plunge in recessions due to the amount of money they invest in stocks and other risky investments. Berkshire Hathaway had losses of -$22.8 billion in 2022. When the S&P500 dropped -19.44% that year, many of the companies that Berkshire held sank in share price. AIG, one of the largest annuity providers, reported a net loss in half of the past eight years. Manulife and Prudential both lost $1.5-$1.65 billion in 2022. Bull Markets If you look closely at the 3-year chart below, you’ll see that Berkshire Hathaway and the S&P500 were dancing together on Wall Street, moving up and down in tandem. It was only in the last month that Berkshire Hathaway decoupled and rose.  It’s a reminder to never confuse a bull market with wisdom, particularly since we don’t receive a warning before a correction. Everything dropped precipitously in the pandemic – in just one month’s time… including Berkshire Hathaway. The same thing happened in the Great Recession. Everything is on fire on Wall Street today, with prices at all-time highs – very expensive. Investors are happy. Bear Markets Corrections, recessions and bear markets are a normal part of a business cycle. It’s hard to remember that because we’ve essentially been in a secular bull market since the Great Recession. The pandemic was papered over with trillions of Stimmy Money, which contributed to the inflation mess and debt crisis we are navigating today. We don’t get forewarnings on recessions and bear markets. Economists are terrible at predicting them, and politicians duct tape their mouths until the crisis demands the truth (such as a TARP bailout). By the time recessions are called, we are far closer to the bottom and would be selling low.  Country Diversification Part of the reason that we have style diversification is for the income. With stock prices so high, the yields of many U.S. value funds are pretty low. (Berkshire Hathaway doesn’t offer income, only, potentially, share price gains.) The U.S. is no longer a AAA-rated country. We are substituting other countries for our value funds, many of which offer more income, sometimes with less risk. Australia is a AAA-rated sovereign, and many of the banks held within the fund are rated higher than U.S. banks. In the case of the Australian ETF EWA, we’re getting almost twice the yield of a U.S. large cap value fund for lower risk. Copper has been called “The New Oil” by Goldman Sachs. This is one of the reasons that Peru is also one of our country value substitutions. Learn more about these countries by clicking on the blue-highlighted links. Dollar Cost Averaging (vs. Buying High) Berkshire Hathaway, like many stocks, is trading at an all-time high. If you still wish to own it as an individual stock (rather than just in a fund) even after all that I’ve said, then first personalize your own age-appropriate, diversified sample pie chart (using our free web app), and then dollar-cost average into the appropriate percentage of your large cap value slice. That way you are not just buying at an all-time high. You are also leaving room for the hots and other size/style choices. If you’d like to personalize your own sample pie chart, email [email protected] for a link to our free web apps. What’s Your Rebalancing Plan? When we invest in just one company, we’re tempted to use momentum, technical analysis or graphs as our gauge on buying and selling – all rearview mirror, rather than crystal ball, data. People often say, “I’ll just monitor the price.” However, doing that can inspire us to do the opposite of what we should be doing. As I’ve already mentioned (but it bears repeating), having just one company in our plan, even one that shadows the markets as Berkshire Hathaway does, is quite likely to jack our emotions in the wrong direction. When the price is high, we want to ride the gains and are enticed to buy more (as you are doing today). When the price drops, we might worry that Warren isn’t around to fix things, and we want to sell low. Wall Street pros have a mantra: Stick to your knitting. This means: do what your system tells you to do and take the emotions out of it. (No Wall Street insider or economist would ever say, “Just invest all you’ve got in one company,” although a salesman might.) Rebalancing 1-3 times a year is a way to capture gains and always have a diversified, age-appropriate plan. If our slices are too large, they are prompting us to sell high. When markets drop, slices become slivers and remind us to buy low. No one, not even pros, are able to market time the exact top or the exact bottom. Instead, we make sure that we have a plan that scores gains in bull markets and protects our wealth from bears. Rebalancing regularly with an age-appropriate, properly diversified plan does just that. Click to take our Rebalancing IQ Test. Bottom Line Buying at the most expensive price ever, hoping to sell higher down the road, praying for fair weather (no recession or correction), while riding a horse that is at the end of his life… Yes, I know that Berkshire Hathaway has many companies under its aegis with experienced, successful CEOs… Geico, Dairy Queen and all of Berkshire Hathaway’s automotive and oil/gas companies will likely stay in business for a while. Yes, I’m exaggerating and probably shouldn’t have used the horse in the metaphor. But it does help to see the illustration more vividly, and all of the other conditions in that set-up are spot on. Warren Buffet’s achievements at Berkshire Hathaway are truly impressive. However, the company’s stock is not immune to recessions, and it hasn’t performed anything close to the Magnificent 7 – the companies that are responsible for more than half of the gains on Wall Street over the past 2 years. Most value stocks and funds pay a dividend, whereas Berkshire Hathaway does not. (If you’re looking for income, you’re not going to get it from this stock.) Additionally, most individuals are not equipped with the time and experience necessary to own an individual stock in their personal wealth plan. Owning just one company isn’t a time-proven 21st Century strategy, while our pie charts with 1-3 times a year rebalancing is. This system is less time and money than most people spend – particularly in troubled times when FUD* sets in. When an “easy” plan has so many ways that it can go wrong, it's really not as effortless or painless as we are hoping it will be. *Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. (With just nine rooms available, this exclusive, private, bucket-list adventure sells out a year in advance!) Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. Your friends and family can get the best price for the April 25-27, 2025 Retreat when they register together. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. Learn how to: * Invest in hot industries, such as Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, * Hedge against a weaker dollar, * Invest and compound your gains, * Green your retirement plan, * Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies, * Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto), * Evaluate stocks, * Avoid capital gains and financial predators, * Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and, * Know what's safe in a Debt World. You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. "Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.  Join us for our Online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and six private, prosperity coaching sessions (value $2,400). There are only 9 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, you're paying to learn the life math that we all should have received in high school, and receiving the room for free. Email [email protected] to learn more. 2025 was sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start transforming our lives now!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden. Check out Natalie Pace's Substack podcast on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Should I Have a Money Manager? The Cleanest Cities in the World. Can Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Gaza Become Edens? Rebuilding Gaza. American Companies Will Benefit. Top Dividend/Income Strategies for 2025. 2025 Crystal Ball: Who Will be the Superstars of Wall Street? Gold & Crypto IRAs and the Risk of Fraud and Losses. 10 Rules of Successful Investing. Quantum Computing. Paper Losses. Another Warning About Long-Term Bonds! 2025 Investor IQ Test. 2025 Investor IQ Test Answers. Apple iPhone Sales Plunge in China. Indonesia: Rich in Nickel with Ambitions of Becoming an EV Battery Hub. RoboTaxis. AI. The Magnificent 7. Charitable Giving. Nonprofits that are Worthy of Supporting. The DJIA Plunged 1100 Points After the Dec. 2024 FOMC Meeting. Why Are So Many Safe Investments Losing Money? A Bargain-Priced AI Company. Canadian, Australian and U.S. Banks. Are Any of Them Safe? Ireland. Rich in Technology, Biotechnology and Agribusiness. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sweepstakes. Robo Investing and AI. No, They are Not Foolproof. Stocks Soar as Nvidia Joins the DJIA. Copper. Peru ETF Outperforms the S&P500. 4 Ways to Celebrate World Sustainability Day, Oct. 30, 2024. Will There be a Santa Rally or will the Election Ruin Everything? Will Insurance Companies & Homeowners Weather the Hurricanes? 9 Money Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Housing & Budgeting Solutions. Arkansas Sues Temu for Data Theft. We Must Be the Boss of Our Money. Why? Fast Fashion. Fossil Fuels. Plastic Clothing. Atacama Desert Waste Dumps. Can Crowdstrike Recover from its Colossal Catastrophe? Featuring a Cybersecurity Overview. Fintechs and Brokerages that Fail are Not FDIC-Insured. 5 Green Tips for Clean Beaches Week. So, You Think You Want to Be a B&B Owner... Retiring Soon? Start Planning Now. 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. Answers to the 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. May is National Bike Month. Paris and Amsterdam are the Stars. Vacations that Color Our World Forever. 9 Inflation, Budgeting, Debt Reduction and Investing Solutions. China & Russia Double Their Gold Holdings. 2024 Investment of the Year? Bitcoin Sets a New Record High. The Importance of Rebalancing. Uh. Oh. More Bank Trouble. Housing. Unaffordable. What Works? Case studies and creative solutions. The Underperforming DJIA, Full of Fossil Fuels and Forever Chemicals. The Best ROI* (Almost 40%!) & 7 Life Hacks That Save Thousands. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. Save Thousands Annually With Smarter Energy Choices Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? Money Market Funds, FDIC, SIPC: Are Any of Them Safe? My 24-Year-Old is Itching to Buy a Condo. Should I Help Him? The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Important Disclaimers Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations. ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.  AI Generated Image. Managed Portfolios. Investors Ask Natalie Pace. Dear Natalie. ___ Investments has been reaching out to me. I've had a conversation with them. I think they mostly invest in stocks. I'm leaning towards thinking that they are not for me but wanted to get your thoughts. Thank you! Signed, Doing my Due Diligence! Dear DD (smart move), All brokerages (and insurance companies, fund companies, banks, crypto exchanges, etc.) want to get bigger. They want to have hundreds of billions of assets under management and be considered a major player. The person who is reaching out to us to gain our business is a salesperson who might earn a fat commission if they bring us in. This is the first thing that we must always keep in mind, especially when they act like they are inviting us into some exclusive, private club. “Now that you are worth a million dollars, you qualify to have us manage your money!” (Standard sales line…) Sometimes they might say that you’re on the low end of their threshold, that they’re making an exception to even consider taking you at all, and that the only way they can do that is if you contribute monthly at XYZ level. Sound familiar? So, how do you know if the opportunity is truly right for you? Is the managed plan as great as the salesman makes it sound? Below are a few considerations before making your choice. Performance vs. S&P 500 for the Past Six Years (Pandemic) and Since 2007 (Great Recession) Interview With the Questions Outlined in the “Brokers are Salesmen” Chapter in Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) Who Makes the Decisions? Are You Informed in Advance? There Are a Lot of Cautionary Tales And here is more color on each topic. Performance vs. S&P 500 for the Past Six Years (Pandemic) and Since 2007 (Great Recession) Managed plans are going to take a percentage or a fee. So, they should be performing above what an index fund would do to make it worth your money. Therefore, it is important for you to understand what their track record is, which is quite easy to do. Simply ask for a performance of their portfolio compared to the S&P 500. You are going to need two different time periods. One chart should cover six years (or start in 2019). Five of the last six years were spectacular bull markets, while one was a pretty steep bear market. The 2-year average of the S&P500 in 2023 and 2024 was about 51%. In 2022, the index dropped -19.44%.  How did the managed plan do over that 6-year period? Did it just perform with the S&P 500? Does the chart factor in fees? You must read the fine print to know. Read it, don’t just take someone’s word for it. I’ve seen far too many cases when a client was told one thing, and a very different story (the truth) was printed on their statement. You’ll also see the March 23, 2020, pandemic low, when the S&P500 dropped almost -38% in one month – between Feb. 19 and March 23, 2020. (If you are reading this after 2025, then you’ll need a longer timeframe to see the pandemic.) Many managed plans shadow the markets, but perform 2% below, due to the fees. In that case, you’re paying to underperform. We also want to look at the performance since 2007, so that we see how the portfolio did in the Great Recession. Again, if you’re just riding the Wall Street rollercoaster and performing at par, it’s better to avoid the 2% annual fees and the stock plunges, particularly as we get closer to retirement. If their portfolio follows the index, it might not be age-appropriate or properly diversified, putting our wealth too much at risk in recessions. While no recession is predicted for 2025 or 2026, economists are terrible at forecasting them. When we wait for the headline that we’re in one, it’s too late. If you’re concerned about the economy, overweight a little more safe. Sometimes overperforming statistics are a red flag, too, particularly in today’s world of AI, where it is quite easy to mockup a fake return. Sadly, outstanding returns can be a red flag for fraud… Have you done a BrokerCheck on the person who contacted you? Have you searched for information on the company online using the terms “scam,” “complaints” and “fraud?” When I did a search using the word “complaint,” I saw quite a lot of troubling reports on the company you inquired about. It’s important to remember just how much money is lost to fraud each year. (Check out my blog and take the SEC’s Fraud IQ test.) Lesser reported are the complaints that are not at the level of fraud but are troubling examples of people receiving a different outcome than they were promised. Most of us can self-direct easily and affordably, using our easy-pie-chart system with 1-3 times a year rebalancing. This is a time-proven 21st Century strategy that earned gains in the Dot Com and Great Recessions and outperformed the bull markets in between. Few managed plans can boast of this… You can read about it in The ABCs of Money 6th edition, you can learn and implement these strategies at our April 25-27, 2025 Online Financial Freedom Retreat. You can also receive an unbiased 2nd opinion from me personally through our private coaching. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more now.  Interview With the Questions Outlined in the “Brokers are Salesmen” Chapter in Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) I have a chapter entitled, “Brokers are Salesmen Not Surgeons” in Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition). It’s important for us to interview our financial advisors as if our life depends upon it because our future and our lifestyle does. The questions that are outlined in that chapter are designed to help you with that process. I provide suggested answers that will help you to discover just how well-designed (or not) their portfolio might be. Also, you’ll start learning how to separate sales pitches from a true strategic personalized plan. Remember that a good salesman will use all of the tricks of the trade to make the sale. Their mantra is ABC – Always Be Closing. Who Makes the Decisions? Are You Informed in Advance? A lot of managed plans hand the control over to the broker-salesman (and their brokerage). Sometimes, the plans don’t even allow you to see how things are invested. Bernie Madoff was notorious for that, and almost every hedge fund has a lockup period and terms that might make it difficult to regain control of your money in a timely manner. But there are also many private credit and equity funds that have a similar policy. These can be part of your managed plan – even if you are receiving statements with a list of your holdings. To make matters even more complicated, some opportunities become illiquid when you purchase them making it difficult to get your money back without losses (or before an extended period). This can be hard to deduce before signing with the firm because (and I’ve seen this on too many occasions) you sign with the brokerage and then they put you in a series of investments, some of which can lose money and/or become illiquid the moment you purchase them – all under the guise of “earning income.” Sometimes when clients question the strategy, they are placated with the amount of income that they are earning, without being advised that they lost on the principal, and there is a question mark about when they will be able to access their money again. All told, when the losses are factored in, the income can be half of what we’d earn in a short-term Treasury Bill. Be sure to read my blogs on “Paper Losses” and “Why So Many Safe Investments are Losing Money.” The links are directly below. There Are a Lot of Cautionary Tales Here are just a few – beyond the headlines of the ones you already know. Paper Losses https://www.nataliepace.com/blog/paper-losses#/ Why So Many Safe Investments Are Losing Money https://www.nataliepace.com/blog/why-are-so-many-safe-investments-losing-money#/ They Trusted Him. Now He Doesn’t Return Phone Calls. https://www.nataliepace.com/blog/they-trusted-him-now-he-doesnt-return-calls#/ Bottom Line In short, it’s important that we are the boss of our money and that we conduct the same level of due diligence for the managed plan that we would if we were hiring a CFO for our billion-dollar business. A lot of folks have their ego stoked for finally “qualifying” for a managed plan. This puts us in a position of proving ourselves worthy of the brokerage, when it should be the other way around. (It’s our money!) I’m not seeing many compelling reasons to go with a managed plan these days, particularly since an age-appropriate, diversified strategy is so easy and effective. Sadly, I’m seeing far too many cases of people regretting the choices and terms that they are being sold into – and this is in a bull market! Imagine what happens if the economy and liquidity become tight. Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 7-14, 2025. Only one room is available (due to a last-minute cancellation at this sold out retreat). Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. Your friends and family can get the best price for the April 25-27, 2025 Retreat when they register together. Request testimonials at [email protected]. You can also view some on the flyer page of the retreat. Learn how to: * Invest in hot industries, such as Nvidia, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing, * Hedge against a weaker dollar, * Invest and compound your gains, * Green your retirement plan, * Easy and efficacious nest egg strategies, * Get hot and diversified (including in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and crypto), * Evaluate stocks, * Avoid capital gains and financial predators, * Keep an age-appropriate amount safe, and, * Know what's safe in a Debt World. You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. "Ten minutes into the first day I was already much smarter about investing than I ever thought I would be in my life and I knew I was in exactly the right place at this retreat. I am amazed at how EASY and FUN it is to make my money work for me and those I love. I think this kind of information should be compulsory in schools. I wish I'd learned this sooner." CM If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.  Join us for our Online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025. Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 2027. Email [email protected] to learn more. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Register now to receive the best price, the best room and six private, prosperity coaching sessions (value $2,400). There are only 9 rooms available. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two. Considering the perks, it is much more affordable than you might think. Email [email protected] to learn more. 2025 was sold out in 2024! Yes, it's a great idea to register and start learning the life math that we all should have received in high school now.  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money (6th edition) and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden. Check out Natalie Pace's Substack podcast on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest The Cleanest Cities in the World. Can Altadena, Pacific Palisades and Gaza Become Edens? Rebuilding Gaza. American Companies Will Benefit. Top Dividend/Income Strategies for 2025. 2025 Crystal Ball: Who Will be the Superstars of Wall Street? Gold & Crypto IRAs and the Risk of Fraud and Losses. 10 Rules of Successful Investing. Quantum Computing. Paper Losses. Another Warning About Long-Term Bonds! 2025 Investor IQ Test. 2025 Investor IQ Test Answers. Apple iPhone Sales Plunge in China. Indonesia: Rich in Nickel with Ambitions of Becoming an EV Battery Hub. RoboTaxis. AI. The Magnificent 7. Charitable Giving. Nonprofits that are Worthy of Supporting. The DJIA Plunged 1100 Points After the Dec. 2024 FOMC Meeting. Why Are So Many Safe Investments Losing Money? A Bargain-Priced AI Company. Canadian, Australian and U.S. Banks. Are Any of Them Safe? Ireland. Rich in Technology, Biotechnology and Agribusiness. Black Friday and Cyber Monday Sweepstakes. Robo Investing and AI. No, They are Not Foolproof. Stocks Soar as Nvidia Joins the DJIA. Copper. Peru ETF Outperforms the S&P500. 4 Ways to Celebrate World Sustainability Day, Oct. 30, 2024. Will There be a Santa Rally or will the Election Ruin Everything? Will Insurance Companies & Homeowners Weather the Hurricanes? 9 Money Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Housing & Budgeting Solutions. Arkansas Sues Temu for Data Theft. We Must Be the Boss of Our Money. Why? Fast Fashion. Fossil Fuels. Plastic Clothing. Atacama Desert Waste Dumps. Can Crowdstrike Recover from its Colossal Catastrophe? Featuring a Cybersecurity Overview. Fintechs and Brokerages that Fail are Not FDIC-Insured. 5 Green Tips for Clean Beaches Week. So, You Think You Want to Be a B&B Owner... Retiring Soon? Start Planning Now. 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. Answers to the 2024 Rebalancing IQ Test. May is National Bike Month. Paris and Amsterdam are the Stars. Vacations that Color Our World Forever. 9 Inflation, Budgeting, Debt Reduction and Investing Solutions. China & Russia Double Their Gold Holdings. 2024 Investment of the Year? Bitcoin Sets a New Record High. The Importance of Rebalancing. Uh. Oh. More Bank Trouble. Housing. Unaffordable. What Works? Case studies and creative solutions. The Underperforming DJIA, Full of Fossil Fuels and Forever Chemicals. The Best ROI* (Almost 40%!) & 7 Life Hacks That Save Thousands. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. Save Thousands Annually With Smarter Energy Choices Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? Money Market Funds, FDIC, SIPC: Are Any of Them Safe? My 24-Year-Old is Itching to Buy a Condo. Should I Help Him? The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Important Disclaimers Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly-traded companies, funds or projects mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations. ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect an age-appropriate, diversified wealth plan, which has been designed strategically, with the assistance of financial professionals who are familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge, patience and diversified strategy. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument. |
AuthorNatalie Pace is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project and the author of The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, The ABCs of Money, The ABCs of Money for College, The Gratitude Game and Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is. She is a repeat guest & speaker on national news shows and stages. She has been ranked the No. 1 stock picker, above over 830 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency, and has been saving homes and nest eggs since 1999. Archives
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