Natalie Pace Blogs
Photo of Natalie Pace by Marie Commiskey. Avalon Photography.
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 Crypto Winter. Author: edwinchuen. Wiki Commons. Used with permission. Crypto Winter Enters Its 3rd Year. A lot has happened since Bitcoin hit a high of $69,000 on Nov. 9, 2021.
What have we learned from this? Don’t Go All In Rebalance Is Crypto Really a Safe Haven? Is Your Cash Really FDIC-Insured in a Brokerage Account? Will CZ Go to Jail? Bitcoin ETFs And here’s more information on each point. Don’t Go All In We should never go all-in on any one asset. Diversification is key, no matter how good the story is. At our retreats and in my books, I encourage investors to think of cryptocurrency as a hot slice or two of their overall wealth strategy. Below is a sample pie chart based upon a 30-year-old. You can personalize your own pie chart using our free Web App. Email info@NataliePace.com for a link to it.  For context of how our pie chart system works, read The ABCs of Money or attend our online Financial Freedom Retreat. Email info@NataliePace.com for more information. Rebalance The pie chart system with regular rebalancing prompts us to capture gains at the high, and buy low in the crypto winter (if you still believe in it). Although HODL was popular when crypto was high, few were adhering to it. The average holding time of Bitcoin, Ethereum and Cardano in 2021 was under 90 days. Even today, when investors are frozen from the long period on crypto ice, Bitcoin’s average hold time is just 101 days. Is Crypto Really a Safe Haven? It’s essential to know what’s safe in a world where crypto values are still down by almost half, 4 U.S. banks failed and bonds lost more than stocks. Safe assets are supposed to protect our principal investment. Currencies are not supposed to be worth $69,000 one year and just $37,000 the next. Imagine if the dollar or euro did that! (We spend one full day on What’s Safe at our New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat.)  Is Your Cash Really FDIC-Insured in a Brokerage Account? As we learned with the failures of Blockfi, Voyager Digital and FTX, FDIC insurance covers failed banks, not brokerages. So, even if the brokerage has a cash sweep program with an FDIC-insured member bank, if the brokerage fails, the cash is not FDIC-insured. Below are blogs with in-depth reviews of getting your cash as safe as possible. Is Your FDIC-Insured Cash Really Safe? https://www.nataliepace.com/blog/is-your-fdic-insured-cash-really-safe-better-double-check#/ Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. https://www.nataliepace.com/blog/bonds-banks-the-treacherous-landscape-of-keeping-our-money-safe#/ Monero. Crypto. Cash. BRICS. Videoconference. https://youtu.be/c0Ib__YTaBU Blog https://www.nataliepace.com/blog/monero-a-token-of-trust#/ Will CZ Go to Jail? According to a court filing, Changpeng Zhao’s sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 23, 2024. Speculation has it that he’ll serve under 18 months. The U.S. Department of Justice noted in its filing today that they could argue for up to 10 years. DOJ officials consider CZ to be a flight risk, particularly since the UAE doesn’t extradite to the U.S. No doubt, there will be high drama in this case over the next few months. In the meantime, CZ resigned as CEO of Binance on Nov. 21, 2023. There are other terms to his agreement. Binance will pay over $4.3 billion in fines. Bitcoin ETFs Financial services companies have had a rough year. Many have low credit scores. So, it’s important to purchase your funds from a company that has a strong credit rating, has been around for a long time and is well capitalized. These are just a few of the reasons why we don’t want to purchase our funds from companies that just started up recently, or others that might be trying to hop onto a hot fad. Before you purchase a Bitcoin ETF, know the company that is offering it. If we’ve never heard of the company before, we’ve got a thousand-piece puzzle to complete on that enterprise before we should buy their pitch. If we can’t find the company’s credit rating, it might be best to just say, “No.” Bottom Line Cryptocurrency is not a stable currency yet (unless you’re laundering money, working in the Black Market, or trying to get around sanctions, and care more about the transaction than the stability of the value). Cryptocurrency is still mostly a trading platform. There is still a lot of fraud in this space, from FTX in 2022 to the Trade Coin Club ruse launched by Joff Paradise that we warned our readers of on June 25, 2017. You might be lured in by a celebrity (like FTX had), a cool name (like Monero), FUD of the U.S. dollar (like original Bitcoin buyers were), or a billionaire (like CZ). However, if you’re not willing to trade the coin (buying low and selling high, like the whales are doing), then you could end up HODLing a lot of losses – for years. Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified (including in EVs, crypto and AI), and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Earn $50,000 or More in Interest. Safely. Finally. Freebies and Deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Auto Strikes End. EV Price Wars Continue. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. Solutions for Unaffordable Housing. The Magnificent 7 Drag NASDAQ into Another Correction Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. 2023 Company of the Year Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.
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 You Could Be Earning up to $50,000 (or more) in Interest (Finally) Is that enough to retire? One-year treasury bills are paying 5.25% these days. If you have $1 million on the safe side, you could be earning $50,000 in interest annually. The US is still an AA+ rated country, so the risk is pretty low on short-term treasuries. The one-year note is actually paying a higher interest rate, then two years or beyond. So keeping the terms short, and the creditworthiness high is not only a sound policy, it’s also giving us a higher yield.  Daily U.S. Treasury Par Yield Curve Rates for the month of Nov. 2023 Bonds are tricky these days, so there are a few things to get right in order to earn this income (which is long overdue). Also, if you’re close to retirement, is it going to fill-in the gap between your earned income and what your Social Security and/or pension is going to pay you? Will 5% interest rates still be around next year? Below are a few things we will go over in this blog. Can you earn enough interest to retire? 5% of $1 Million Social Security Benefits Medical Costs Align your mortgage payoff date with your retirement date Reducing Expenses Increasing Income Will interest rates go higher or lower? Keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high Bond Funds And here’s more information on each point below. Can you earn enough interest to retire? A recent retiree was accustomed to earning $150,000 a year. Her Social Security was going to provide her with less than $45,000. She had no pension. The company she worked for was giving her a lump sum of about $250,000. All told, if her expenses and spending stay where they are, she could easily burn through that in 2 1/2 years. Add in the additional $600,000 she has in her other retirement accounts, and she wouldn’t last a decade. It’s a good idea to do the math before we retire, especially in today’s inflationary world! With 5% interest rates, we can finally earn some passive income without too much risk of capital loss. And there may be other ways to reduce expenses and increase income – both of which will be necessary. 5% of $1 Million The retiree mentioned above had closer to $800,000 which would bring her $40,000 annually, if she was earning a 5% interest rate. That’s still about $65,000 shy of what she was accustomed to earning, but it is at least moving in the right direction. Her bills, excluding Medicare, prescriptions and doctor visits, remain above $70,000 a year. That’s still flying too close to the trees for an $85,000 annual income. It doesn’t leave any room for fun or travel. If she has a major plumbing, roof or landscaping repair, or a health crisis, she might be forced to rely on credit cards to get her through. One word of warning. I have coaching clients who have been told that they are earning 5-7% on their “conservative” investments. Since bonds lost more than stocks did last year, those claims might not be truthful.  The real return (under 2%, or perhaps even bond losses, once the losses are factored in) is written in the fine print of the statement. Long-term bonds that are low credit quality are the most problematic. (Click to learn more.) Another client was sold into a “safe,” high-yield, private placement REITs (oxymorons & red flags galore!). Read their story in their own words in our blog, “They Trusted Him. Now He Doesn’t Return Phone Calls.” Rather than earning almost 10% yield, they lost -18% of their investment. Again, bonds are tricky (but worth it!), which is why we spend one full day on how to get a safe yield at our Financial Freedom Retreat. Social Security Benefits The interesting thing about Social Security benefits is that there are ways to get more than you think you might, and waiting for the larger amount when you hit 72 doesn’t always add up. if your spouse (or ex-spouse) earned a lot more income than you did, and you were married for longer than 10 years, and you never married again, you might qualify to get up to half of what your spouse or ex is receiving. When considering exactly when you should start taking your Social Security, you also want to factor in the money you’ll miss by waiting until you get the full benefit amount. There are a few things in the fine print that you’ll really want to go through forensically when deciding when the time is right to start drawing on your Social Security benefits. Medical Costs Medical costs are the biggest expenses as we get older, and are the leading cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. (66.5%, source: NIH). Healthcare in the United States makes up 18% of GDP ($3.8 trillion in 2019). Many people are paying a good portion of the small amount of Social Security they receive back to the government for their Medicare premiums. This is one of the reasons that we encourage younger people who are healthy to consider setting up a health savings account for themselves. Health savings accounts offer tax credits, save thousands annually on health premiums, and are also the best long-term healthcare plan in retirement. It’s a great idea to have your own healthcare nest egg for your retirement, which also rewards you throughout your professional life with thousands annually that you don’t spend making the health insurance company and the taxman rich. If you’re close to retirement, and you didn’t establish a health savings account, then it becomes even more imperative that you adjust your expenses to your new income as quickly as possible (downsize). Burning through your 401k and IRAs to stay in a lifestyle that you can no longer afford is a perilous position to put yourself in. Also, remember that health is the best health insurance. Eat right, exercise and have fun to stay strong and spend less money on the doctor. Align your mortgage payoff date with your retirement date Almost everyone earns a lot less in retirement than they did in the workplace. So, before we retire, it’s a really good idea to try to get rid of as many bills as possible. One of the biggest bills is our mortgage payment. So for most of us, it’s going to make a lot of sense to pay off our mortgage before we retire. (if you purchased your home recently or still owe a lot of money on your home loan, then your circumstance might require additional considerations.) Reducing Expenses Reducing our expenses will make retirement bucks go further. Free housing for a home that you own free and clear (with only property taxes, maintenance and upkeep to pay) can save tens of thousands of dollars annually. If we have that HSA, then our medical insurance premiums will be much lower. If we live in a sunny state and have solar, our electric bill could be under $500 a year. Energy efficiency upgrades could cut our electric bill in half. Rethinking transportation could save us $8000 or more annually. We spend one full day on safe, income-producing hard assets that we can purchase for a good price. Many of them pay us a better return on investment than any bond could hope to do (15% annualized or higher). One coaching client is saving about $7,200/year on her utility bill from her $26,700 investment in solar. She’s receiving $8000 in tax credits and will pay off the panels in under three years. Thereafter, she is essentially receiving 38.5% ROI on her solar investment every year, in money that she no longer pays the utility (that she can now spend or invest on things she likes more). Additionally, sometimes the best way to downsize is to think bigger and factor in our family. The goal is always to keep the money in the family, and stop making everyone else rich at our own expense. Increasing Income We’ve talked about how getting a 5% interest-rate on the safe side of our portfolio through a carefully designed plan of short-term, creditworthy bonds or treasury bills can augment our income. Putting a spare bedroom or ADU* on Traveling Nurses or Airbnb could be worth thousands annually (though you’ll have extra work to keep your space desirable and booked). *Auxiliary Dwelling Unit One retiree had a novel approach. She rented out her big house, and then downsized to an efficiency condo. The income from the rental combined with her pension and her 401(k) offered her almost the same annual income that she earned as a professional. With the same income and a dramatically reduced cost of living, she now spends about six months out of the year traveling to her bucket list vacation destinations. Should your kids spend tens of thousands of dollars on rent? Or could that money go toward remodeling and upgrading (or paying off) the family home? There are many case studies examined in the Real Estate section of The ABCs of Money, 5th edition.  Will interest rates go higher or lower? Prior to the rate hikes last year, interest rates spent over a decade in the doldrums. You would have to swim in the risk of junk bonds to get a 5% interest rate. And there you risk drowning in losses of your principal, which defeats the purpose of having a safe side of your wealth plan. Forecasters are predicting that interest rates could go lower as soon as next year. That may make it tempting to reach for yield, or take on longer terms. However, this must be done very strategically. Over half of the S&P500 is at or near junk bond status. Banks were failing earlier this year, and not all of the financial services industries are out of the woods. Some sectors, like commercial real estate are already facing dire straits. Read my 'WeWork Files for Bankruptcy' blog for more information. Keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high Getting 5% is very tricky. The newer issuances with shorter terms are paying a higher interest rate with more credit quality and less risk. So a good rule of thumb is to keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high. We’re still not getting paid to reach for yield, when you consider that long-term bonds lost 26% of their value last year and pay a lower interest rate than short-term. We need to be mindful about yield, as we’ve been alerting our retreat attendees and readers for more than a decade now. Yield is back, but it is very tricky. There is still a great deal of duration and credit risk. That won’t abate without some pain and potentially more bankruptcies. There remains a danger of negative yields (from valuation losses and fees), losses in principal and illiquidity (no one would want to take it off your hands without a large discount). Many investors try to salve the wounds of their bond losses by saying they’ll just hold to term. However, we’re seeing terms that are well beyond lifespans. One 70-year-old coaching client had a junk bond that wouldn’t pay him back until 2074. Bond losses were at the heart of the bank failures in 2023. The professionals are having problems! Many of us hold these same troublesome assets in our own nest egg (whether we know it or not). This makes it essential to know exactly what we own and why and to be the boss of our money, rather than having blind faith that someone else is protecting us. Bottom Line There are certain years when protecting our wealth becomes our most important job. Most of us have more in our retirement accounts than we can earn in many years of working. Others need to do the math before we retire or allow ourselves to be furloughed. This is going to require learning the life math that we all should have received in high school and college. Whether you get this information by attending our New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat, or by receiving an unbiased 2nd opinion through our private coaching, now is the right time to start the process. When we wait for the headlines that the economy is in troubled times, most people have already lost -40% or more of their wealth. It’s time to fix the roof while the sun is still shining. Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified (including in EVs and AI), and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Freebies and Deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Auto Strikes End. EV Price Wars Continue. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. Solutions for Unaffordable Housing. The Magnificent 7 Drag NASDAQ into Another Correction Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. 2023 Company of the Year Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  Black Friday. Cyber Monday. 2023. Happy Thanksgiving! What are you thankful for? Share with us on social media. Among the many things that we’re grateful for, we’re happy to be able to offer the following Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals. Free Ebooks make great stocking stuffers! From Friday, Nov. 24 to Tuesday, Nov. 28 ONLY, you can download Natalie Pace’s bestselling ebooks for free. (Canadians, while the offer might not be available to you, the ebook price is under $5, and our other deals are definitely yours for the taking.) The Power of 8 Billion: It’s Up to Us. Learn the quadruple win of greener choices. Save thousands annually. Healthier You, Healthier Budget, Healthier planet. Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is (2nd edition) Investing Strategies for Lifetime Wealth and a Sustainable Planet. One of the original ESG Investing books that was first in 2008. The ABCs of Money (5th edition) Time-Proven 21st Century Strategies for Debt Reduction, Budgeting, Real Estate, Stocks, Bonds, Crypto, Gold and more. The ABCs of Money for College Get a better degree for up to half the cost. Parents: you want to read this book when your child is born. Teens: if you’re going to have to plan this on your own, there are great tips and resources that you just won’t find with your college counselors and those standardized personality tests.
BOGO Coaching Buy 3 and Get 3 Additional Private Prosperity Coaching Sessions Complimentary Call 310-430-2397 or email info@NataliePace.com for pricing and information. (You're also receiving a bundling discount on the 3-pack that you purchase.) These sessions can be used for an unbiased 2nd opinion of your current wealth plan. Learn exactly what you own and what a safer, hotter, and more diversified plan looks like. Natalie Pace’s analysis comes with color-coded details of all of your holdings and easy-to-understand instructions that you can choose to use (or not). You’ll learn what’s toxic, what’s safe, what you have too much of and what you’re missing. You’re the boss of your money. Our mission is to provide the news, information, time-proven systems and education to make it easier to navigate through all the noise, hullabaloo and traps, to live a richer life, earn money while you sleep and stop making the billionaires rich at our own expense (also good for the planet). Complimentary Coaching Receive a 50-minute Private Prosperity Coaching Session (value $400) when you register for our New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The above offers expire Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023 at midnight PT. Save $200 On the New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat Now through Nov. 30, 2023, you’ll save $200 when you register for our Jan. 13-15, 2024 online retreat. Bring someone with you and they pay half of the regular price. (Bring a teen or college student for less than many people spend on streaming services!)  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Sustainability Adventures Treat yourself to a week in a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, with a select group of Brain Trust adventurers. What can you learn by living and visioning as you walk in the footsteps of billionaires who have kept their wealth for centuries? The 2023 Retreat was an epic success. The possibilities are endless when you step into a world of infinite possibilities, where you are in control of what you create and how you live. Check out the testimonials and a short video created by the attendees at the Restormel Retreat flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two! The holiday gift of financial freedom is one that will transform your life forever. As Natalie Pace says, “Every cent we own and every moment we spend is always an investment.” Imagine stepping into a life where you feel a return on investment of time, talent and money with every breath you take. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more now. Happy Thanksgiving!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 on Apple and Spotify. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Auto Strikes End. EV Price Wars Continue. WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. Solutions for Unaffordable Housing. The Magnificent 7 Drag NASDAQ into Another Correction Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. 2023 Company of the Year Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  The Baojun Yep EV, starting at just $11,900, is General Motors' joint venture in China with SAIC-GM-Wuling. Electric vehicles are the fastest growing vertical in the auto industry, and China is the biggest auto market in the world. Tesla and General Motors are the both on the Top 10 Chinese New Energy Vehicle list. Tesla is 2nd behind BYD Auto year to date, with 7.8% and 36.0% market share, respectively (source: CNEVPost.com).  However, GM’s joint venture, SAIC-GM-Wuling, just soared to #3 in October, while Tesla sank to #8, with 6.4% and 3.7% market share on the month, respectively.  Recently, despite the rapid growth of EVs, both Ford and GM moderated their tone on a move from ICE* to electric. Why is that, and what does that mean for the future of Ford and General Motors? Why are these companies pumping the brakes on their EV launches? *Internal Combustion Engines Will the EV price wars, inflation and uncertain economic times cause struggling or cash-bleed startups to go belly-up? Can Rivian keep losing $32,595 for every vehicle sold? We’ll also cover the following in this blog. Competition is Fierce Chinese EVs Valuations are Volatile Tesla And here is more information on each point. Why are Ford and General Motors pumping the brakes on their EV launches? Both companies have indicated that the price wars, inflation and profitability lie at the heart of a more moderate approach to their EV transition. Electric vehicles made up less than 5% of Ford’s revenue in the most recent quarter. Ford’s CFO John Lawler put a positive spin on the slower adoption. In the company’s 3Q earnings press release, he wrote, “Ford is able to balance production of gas, hybrid and electric vehicles to match the speed of EV adoption in a way that others can’t. That’s obviously good for customers, who get the products they want – and good for us, too, because disciplined capital allocation and not chasing scale at all costs maximizes profitability and cash flow.” What Lawler didn’t mention is that retooling factories from ICE to EV is an expensive game, particularly when your credit rating is at the lowest rung of investment grade (BBB-), and your current liabilities are almost four times the company's cash on hand. Meanwhile, General Motors delivered 541,000 EVs in China in the 3rd quarter of 2023, mostly through its joint venture with SAIC-GM-Wuling (295,000 units). However, GM CEO Mary Barra is dialing back the company’s previously pledged plan of an all-electric future. In the 3Q 2023 Letter to Shareholders of Oct. 24, 2023, Barra wrote, “We are moderating the acceleration of EV production in North America to protect our pricing, adjust to slower near-term growth in demand, and implement engineering efficiency and other improvements that will make our vehicles less expensive to produce, and more profitable.” GM is rated BBB by S&PGlobal. GM’s cash vs. current liabilities is in a similar situation to Ford’s. Both Ford and GM have union labor, pensions and other post-employment benefits weighing on their margins – challenges that Tesla and the Chinese companies do not have (yet). The transition to electric vehicles is similar to the instant switch the world made from ICE to hybrids in 2004 – when the Toyota Prius was named Car of the Year by Motor Trend. After Toyota changed the game with the Prius hybrid, the Big 3 Detroit automakers suffered greatly. Both Chrysler and GM eventually had to declare bankruptcy in 2009. Their stronghold on ICE vehicles helped GM and Ford keep their revenues above $150 billion in 2022 – keeping them in the Top 4 in sales worldwide, behind Toyota (#1) and Stellantis (#2). (Ford Motor Company posted a net loss of -$1.98 billion in 2022.) EVs made up 7.9% of U.S. total industry sales in the 3rd quarter of 2023. The industry has a great ways to go before it puts ICE out of business. Meanwhile the Chinese automakers dominate revenue growth. Li Auto surged 271.6% year over year, Nio gave a strong showing in the 3rd quarter with a 75.4% annual increase in deliveries, Xpeng enjoyed its best month ever in October 2023 with 20,002 deliveries , which will be three times 4Q 2022, if the company continues apace. BYD continues to enjoy the top NEV sales spot, with year-over-year revenue growth of 38.5%. Email info@NataliePace.com with Auto Stock Report Card in the subject line if you’d like an updated report. Will the price wars, inflation and uncertain economic times cause struggling or cash-bleed startups to go belly-up? Can Rivian keep losing $32,595 for every vehicle sold? The startup had impressive revenue growth of 149.4% in the most recent quarter. However, Rivian also lost $6.75 billion in 2022. They talk about a pathway to profitability, but can this expensive EV truck (starting at $75,000) get there? Tesla is profitable, but is having its margins squeezed due to the price wars. The company’s net profit was $1.85 billion in the 3rd quarter of 2023, down -44% from $3.29 billion a year ago. Most of the younger EV companies are cash negative. WM Motors, a Chinese EV startup, filed for a pre-restructuring process on October 7, 2023. It hopes to continue operating. Fisker delivered 1097 Ocean vehicles in the third-quarter, which was their first full quarter of deliveries. While that’s impressive, at the same time, the company slashed production by 26%. The price wars, inflation and economic uncertainty are forcing all automakers to conserve capital and manage production, so they don’t build up too much inventory. Competition is Fierce China is already competing in the EV space in other countries. Moody's predicts that China will overtake Japan as the world's #1 exporter of vehicles by the end of this year. Nio cars have won awards in Germany, Sweden and Norway. They are also competing to have the smartest car, the best charging network (or battery swap), the safest vehicles and even the most productive showrooms and sales teams. Europe is so concerned about the Chinese dominance of EV exports that the European Union launched an anti-subsidy probe in September of 2023. With much lower labor costs, the Chinese automakers have the ability to keep prices low and competitive, forcing other carmakers, including Tesla, to lower prices to compete. Because interest rates are now a major consideration in the monthly payment, and most people finance their vehicle purchases, even Tesla has become more measured in its projections, mentioning the phrase “uncertain times” at least five times in their most recent earnings call. Serious delinquencies on credit card debt and auto loans in the U.S. are still low, but are starting to creep up.  Chinese EVs As you can see in the chart at the top of this blog, BYD is by far the most popular EV brand in China. Li Auto is doing great with its plug-in hybrid. An emerging preference for hybrids has come about perhaps because drivers just don’t want to queue up at charging stations. Nio makes its charging stations available to other customers, but prioritizes their own customers during high demand. While both Nio and XPeng struggled over the last year, they have completed their new launches with flying colors. Xpeng delivered 40,008 vehicles in the third quarter, which is an increase of 72.4% sequentially and 35.3% year over year. Nio delivered 55,432 vehicles in the third quarter, which is an increase of 75.4% year over year, and more than double the deliveries in the second quarter. Valuations are Volatile Valuations on all EV automakers are very volatile. Tesla’s 52-week range is $100-$300/share. It has soared and plunged to a valuation of over a trillion and a low of $300 billion (still massive compared to its peers). Nio and XPeng are trading very close to their five-year lows. In addition to the various challenges that all auto manufacturers have faced since the pandemic, including rising interest rates, supply chain issues, and the price wars, the Chinese companies have fallen out of favor on Wall Street. Although there is hope that the accounting standards are in better shape than originally thought, not all of the Chinese companies have recovered from the negative sentiment. Tesla Tesla vehicles are beloved around the world. The company had revenue of $81.46 billion, with net income of $12.58 billion, in 2022. The Tesla Model 3 has become more affordable than its ICE competitors, once you factor in tax incentives. Add in gasoline savings and you're really saving money.  More recently, however, Tesla's sales growth has slowed to 9% YOY, and net profit margins are getting squeezed. While analysts and investors place a lot of hope for Tesla’s expansion into Mexico and the cyber truck, Elon is tempering expectations on both of these. He believes that it is possible to hit deliveries of a quarter of a million cyber trucks perhaps by 2025, but warns that profitability is a problem with this particular product. High interest rates were another concern touched on repeatedly in the Tesla third quarter 2023 earnings call. According to Elon, “informing people of a car that is great but they cannot afford doesn't really help. So, that is really the thing that must be sold, is to make the car affordable, or the average person cannot buy it for any amount of money.” A lot of American companies, particularly companies in hot industries like electric vehicles and artificial intelligence, are being priced at very high valuations. Tesla’s price earnings ratio is 68. Essentially investors are assigning a value of $772 billion to a company that only had $12.6 billion in net income last year, and is likely to have less in 2023. Bottom Line Electric vehicles, and the emphasis on artificial intelligence and smart cars in this industry, are exciting. EVs continue to be the fastest growing vertical in autos. However, capitalizing as an investor is quite tricky with the squirrelly valuations, price wars, expensive share prices, and the fact that a lot of people are burning through their personal savings to stay afloat in today’s inflationary world. Automakers always suffer greatly when the economy slows down or hits a recession, since 70% of U.S. GDP is directly linked to consumption. Even though Tesla is a clear leader, with brand pizazz, beloved products, and strong sales, that’s already more than priced in. A better choice for many investors, including more passive investors, might be an ETF that targets EVs, such as the iShares IDRV product. That ETF offers exposure to Tesla, BYD, Rivian, XPeng, Li auto and more. Using a dollar-cost-averaging approach, with our pie chart system and regular rebalancing, will help us to stay on the right side of the trade. Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified (including in EVs and AI), and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest WeWork's Bankruptcy. Half-Empty Office Buildings. Problems in our Personal Wealth Plan. Solutions for Unaffordable Housing. The Magnificent 7 Drag NASDAQ into Another Correction Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. 2023 Company of the Year Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors. What WeWork’s Bankruptcy and Half-Empty Office Buildings Have to Do With Our Personal Wealth Plan.9/11/2023
What WeWork’s Bankruptcy and Half-Empty Office Buildings Have to Do With Our Personal Wealth Plan. WeWork is the first major crack in the frozen commercial real estate market. What other companies will fall in and sink? Is this dangerous for our own wealth plan or the overall economy? With all that is going on in the world (prayers for peace continue), you might not have heard that WeWork filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 6, 2023. The company will continue operating, but will restructure its debt and use the Chapter 11 filing to exit its underperforming leases. According to David Tolley, the CEO of WeWork, “Now is the time for us to pull the future forward by aggressively addressing our legacy leases and dramatically improving our balance sheet.” Since WeWork was the largest tenant in New York City, this could have a major ripple effect on other commercial real estate companies, at a time when the industry is already in distress. In a report earlier this year, S&P Global warned that “fundamentals in the office real estate market are deteriorating, pressured by longer-term secular headwinds from remote working and near-term cyclical risks from a slowing economy and weaker job growth.” The rating agency downgraded Hudson Pacific Properties to junk (BB+, outlook negative) on June 28, 2023. (WeWork was always a junk bond – even before its failed IPO.) Most CRE corporations are at the lowest rung of investment grade or speculative status. Why should this matter to the Main Street investor? Banks, insurance companies and pension providers loan on a long-term basis to commercial real estate companies, and these problematic loans and bonds are losing value. As we’ve been reporting all year, long-term bonds lost more than stocks in 2022. Since financial planners (even fiduciaries) typically invest the safe side of our portfolio in bonds, this problem impacts many of us (who might not realize it, if we are not forensic about reviewing our holdings).  CRE exposure and long-term bonds were also at the heart of the bank failures earlier this year. Whether we have uninsured deposits or annuities, are counting on a pension, or just want to ensure that the “safe” side of our wealth plan is protected from capital losses, it’s important to understand the issues of CRE, why we’re underweighting the industry in our sample pie charts, and what each one of us can do to steer clear of the risk. (Consider joining us for our New Year, New You Retreat or getting an unbiased 2nd opinion through my private coaching program. Email info@NataliePace.com for pricing and information.) Here are the topics we’ll cover in this blog. Recent Downgrades to Junk Suspended Dividends (HPP) Empty Office Buildings Stalled-Out Projects (Google: One Westside) Valuations Debt Banks, Insurance Companies, Pension Plans And here is more information on each point. Recent Downgrades to Junk Before Hudson Pacific Properties was downgraded to speculative status on June 28, 2023, the company was trading at $15/share with a yield of 19%. It’s now trading in the $5/share range, with a suspended dividend. Be careful of taking the bait of high yield. It can result in major capital loss. In the case of a bankruptcy like WeWork, it is common for existing stock to become worthless, and for the company to reissue new shares when it emerges from bankruptcy. Suspended Dividends Hudson Pacific Properties suspended their dividend on September 7, 2023. Vornado postponed their dividends on April 26, 2023. At the end of the year, the company will determine whether the dividend will be paid in cash or cash and securities. We don’t get advance notice before the action takes place. Typically companies announce after the market close, which causes the stock to gap down in after-hours trading. (In the case of GE, Warren Buffett magically exited the stock just a few months before the company slashed their dividend by half.) By the time that most Main Street investors learn of the bad news, they’ve already lost a great deal of money. There have been many lessons over the years on dividends. Click for a history lesson on what happened when General Electric cut its dividend in Nov. 2017. FYI: We also warned about WeWork when the IPO was first announced. Empty Office Buildings Work From Home has changed the inner city landscape. Gone are the bustling business centers and the crowded taco stands, lunch counters and restaurants that serviced office staff. Vacancies are up, and many corporations are looking to downsize their office footprint.  Alphabet (Google) booked $2.6 billion in charges related to workforce and office space reductions in the 1st quarter of 2023. Many other companies, including technology, banking and more, are reducing their office space and switching to hybrid work-from-home schedules for their staff. When we hear Jamie Dimon and other bank CEOs yelling that people have to come back to the office or else, one of the underlying reasons is that banks have a lot of exposure to those empty office buildings. HENRYs fled expensive cities to work from home in more affordable suburbs and towns. With housing still largely unaffordable in the very areas with the highest office vacancy rates, it’s difficult to see this situation resolving itself without more bloodbaths like WeWork – no matter how red in the face exacerbated CEOs get. Stalled-Out Projects (Google: One Westside) In January 2019, Google signed a 14-year lease as the sole tenant of One Westside, a mall renovation project owned 75% by Hudson Pacific Properties and 25% by Macerich. Everyone was excited by this ambitious attempt to give new life to an outdated shopping center. And then the pandemic hit. All three companies (Macerich, Hudson and Alphabet) have been radio silent on when or if Google is going to move into One Westside. However, the building is completely fenced in. and there was no construction activity when I visited the site in September and again in November. When I visited on Nov. 7, 2023, I was greeted at the gate by a construction supervisor who told me there was still a lot of work to do before any tenant could occupy the space.  Photo of One Westside, 10800 Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA. Taken by Natalie Wynne Pace on Nov. 7, 2023. Valuations Transactions have been down significantly in CRE of late. Sales this year are about 1/3 of the volume of transactions last year (source: CommercialEdge). Hanging on to hopes that outdated valuations would hold worked out during the pandemic, when money was flowing free and easy. However, now monetary policy is tight and expensive. Many loans and covenants are coming due in 2024. With a frozen market, the valuations that the CRE companies and banks are clinging to may not be representative of what the buildings are truly worth. We got a glimpse of that on Oct. 10,, 2023 when a downtown Boston office building sold for $4.1 million. It had been purchased for $16 million in 2018. The potential for large losses on commercial real estate is currently one of the most cited risks to financial stability in the U.S.  Debt Commercial real estate has been on a lifeline of leases and federal support since 2020. However, as leases come up and are not renewed, as companies fail (WeWork), or as large corporations (such as Alphabet) are willing to take a huge financial hit to extricate themselves from their leases, all of which are happening, CRE companies are forced to borrow money to make ends meet. Many already have speculative credit, or reside at the lowest rung of investment grade. Borrowing today with a low credit score is expensive. High vacancies complicate things even further. The older the building, the least likely it is to be one of the chosen few for the new work environment, which trends toward communal space and sustainability over cubicles and a big CO2 footprint. Banks, Insurance Companies, Pension Plans According to the Federal Reserve’s Oct. 2023 Financial Stability Report, “Higher interest rates, declining property prices, and structural shifts in demand for office space may prompt large realized losses.” Small and regional banks are the most vulnerable to CRE weakness. However, insurance companies are also large holders of commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS). “Life insurers continued to allocate a high percentage of assets to risky instruments, such as leveraged loans, high-yield corporate bonds, privately placed corporate bonds, and alternative investments,” according to the Financial Stability Report. Bottom Line It’s important to look forensically at the holdings in our wealth plan, even if it is professionally managed. Telling our financial advisor broker/salesman to get us “safe” is not guaranteed to achieve what we desire, especially if we don’t know or understand what we own. (I do a great deal of 2nd opinions and have seen losses and heard many alarming misrepresentations in “conservatively” allocated wealth plans! Click to read about a few.) The safe side of our portfolio is not supposed to be vulnerable to capital losses. While digging into the details might sound laborious or complicated, it’s actually less time and money (there is quite a lot at stake money-wise) once we learn the life math that we all should have received in high school and college. Wisdom is the cure and the time to be the boss of our money and future is now. I’ll be discussing this in greater detail in my Thursday videoconference (Nov. 9, 2023). Email info@NataliePace.com with VIDEOCON in the subject line if you’d like to join us live. (You’ll receive the logon instructions automatically if you’re already on the list.) Email info@NataliePace.com with CRE Stock Report Card in the subject line if you’d like an updated Stock Report Card. Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified, and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Solutions for Unaffordable Housing. The Magnificent 7 Drag NASDAQ into Another Correction Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World Summer Sweepstakes 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. Tesla's Model Y is the Bestselling Car in the World. 2023 Company of the Year Sell in May and Go Away? Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. The Debt Ceiling Crisis. What's at Stake? Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Empty Office Buildings & Malls. Frozen Housing Market. The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks The Debt Ceiling. Will the U.S. Stop Paying Bills in June? Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 8 Fires the Federal Reserve Board Needs to Put Out. 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. The 2 Best Solar Stocks Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Rebalance By the End of March Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Are You Anxious or Depressed over Money? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. You Stream all the Channels. Should You Invest, Too? NASDAQ is Still Down -26%. Are Meta & Snap a Buy? 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 2023 Crystal Ball for Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Cannabis, Gold, Silver. Tilray: The Constellation Brands of Cannabis New Year, New Healthier You Tesla's $644 Billion Fall From Mars Silver's Quiet Rally. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. Gardeners Creating Sanctuary & Solutions in Food Deserts. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  Craftsman home with garage converted into an ADU. Wiki Commons. Used with permission. www.sightline.org Housing is Unaffordable. Here Are Some Solutions and Warnings. The housing market is virtually frozen. Airbnb hosts are experiencing longer periods of unoccupancy. More apartment buildings have been constructed. However, many sit empty because the owners are unwilling to lower their prices. Meanwhile, report after report comes out stating that housing is virtually unaffordable. “The dynamics influencing the U.S. housing market appear to continuously work against everyday Americans, potentially to the point where they could start to have a significant impact on home prices,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “We clearly aren’t there yet, as the market keeps going up… But with basic homeownership now soaking up more than a third of average pay, the stage is set for some potential buyers to be priced out, which would reduce demand and the upward pressure on prices. We will see how this shakes out as the peak 2023 buying season winds down.”  High prices, and the need to charge high rents, puts homeowners, commercial real estate, homebuyers and renters all in an untenable position. If you are a homeowner who is in distress, then private coaching might be very helpful. (Email info@NataliePace.com for pricing and information.) At minimum, read the Real Estate section of The ABCs of Money, 5th edition. This blog offers solutions for anyone who finds themselves in a position of paying 30% or more of their income on housing. Drowning in basic needs means we cannot invest in our own future. When we put essentials like food and clothing on credit cards that is a disaster waiting to happen. The only solution is to make brave choices about the big-ticket bills as quickly as possible, in order to get ahead in a world that simply doesn’t add up at this time. Here are the 4 Tips and 3 Warnings we’ll discuss in this blog. Think Bigger Keep the Money in the Family Partner Up The 4 D’s Warnings Are You Buying High? Know Your Neighborhood Do Your Own Math And here’s more information on each point Think Bigger Singles and one-bedrooms are far more expensive than two, three or four-bedroom lodging that you might split with a few friends. If a one bedroom (in a more affordable city) costs $1200 and a two bedroom costs $1400, the saving amounts to about $500 a month which is $6000 a year. Of course, in big cities rents are a lot more expensive than that. However, the savings of thinking bigger tend to be substantial there, as well. If you are a homeowner who is spending 30% or more on your home costs, then is there a way to start earning some income? Can you put in an ADU* and have your aging parents stay there, with everyone contributing to the housing costs? (Why not have them pay you instead of making the landlord rich?) If your parents aren’t the right answer, could you provide lodging for a traveling nurse or Ph.D. student? *additional dwelling unit Keep the Money in the Family We all think about family money when someone passes, and the will of the estate is being parceled out. However, how much more money would we have if we all thought about keeping the money in the family? (This is the way that very wealthy people think.) Yes, this could mean living with your parents as an adult. The Prince of Wales has inherited a lot of land and money. However, for most of his life, he lived in apartments in his Grandmother’s castles and estates. His salary as an air ambulance helicopter pilot wouldn’t have paid for all of his expenses. I know one mother who is close to retirement, who gave her kids the big house and remodeled an ADU in the back for her mother-in-law unit. Family solutions are happening all across the United States. According to a Harris Poll for Bloomberg, about 45% of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 now live with their parents. For many of them that is a savings of $10,000 or more annually that they would be giving to a landlord. Partner Up Another way of saving money on housing is to partner up. As a young single mother, I moved in with another single mother. I experienced savings of about 30% on rent, thousands of dollars on child care that I didn’t have to spend, and cut my food bill in half because we would switch off weeks that we cooked. There is a pretty funny Neil Simon play and vintage TV show, The Odd Couple, about two divorced dads who move in together to save money. What kind of community will serve you best? The 4 D’s While the housing market is currently frozen, the 4 D’s can be relied upon to dislodge the stalemate. What are the 4 D’s? Death, divorce, depression (recession) and disaster. Sadly, in today’s world, we can count on one of these tragedies occurring. Things become a grave hardship when two or more happen at the same time. Currently, everyone is still hoping that the Federal Reserve Board will achieve a soft landing and start cutting interest rates. What is missing from that rationale is that the Feds don’t cut interest rates until economic conditions have become strident. Cutting interest rates is the medicine administered when unemployment skyrockets, equity prices plunge, foreclosures abound, and corporate bankruptcies escalate. While 0% interest rates have been the norm since the Great Recession, they encourage speculation and discourage savings, which has exacerbated the pickle we’re in today. Those homeowners who wanted to get rich quick or land a treasure trove as an Airbnb host are now hanging on for dear life. Warnings Are You Buying High? Are you tempted to buy now? Are you aware that you’re buying at an all-time high? Are you being seduced into that situation with the bait that you could buy something for less than you’re renting, or with the promise of capital gains or rental income? Did you know that that simple math is excluding a great deal of homeownership expenses and could add up to hard life lessons and expensive losses? Buying high is rarely a good idea, and can destroy your financial life for a decade if home prices fall severely below your mortgage. The reason few people buy low is because they can’t. They have all their money tied up in investments that have lost too much value. There is no liquidity remaining. Matters are made worse because our FICO score plunges as well. In recessions, most people spend years of the recovery hoping and praying that they crawl back to even. Know Your Neighborhood It’s tempting to run off to the suburbs, or some smaller city where prices might be more affordable, particularly if we believe that we can work from home. However, have we factored in the extra expense and time of our commute? Do we really know what the benefits and challenges are of the neighborhood or city that we are moving into? Are there downsides that tourists are simply not aware of? Are these our people? Will you and your neighbors bicker or support one another. There are seven tips for considering where your ideal home should be in the Real Estate section of The ABCs of Money, 5th edition. Do Your Own Math The first time that we buy a house, we are often looking at the price, and then focusing on whatever numbers the real estate broker salesman provides us with. The fine print might include the closing fees and property taxes, but rarely spells out the actual cost of remodeling, the maintenance on the home, and many other expenses that renters rarely experience. While prices are currently at all-time highs is in the United States and many other developed world countries, the real estate broker/salesman will be steering our gaze towards the gains that have been made over the past decade, without warning that in recessions, prices plunge. It is very important to know where the value of your home sits on the Buy Low, Sell High continuum over the past decade. That is far more important than how many gains have been made by sophisticated investors who purchased when the price was much lower. Bottom Line New studies are showing that almost half of people under the age of 30 are living with their parents. While previously this would’ve come with a derisive comment about slackers, it is now being acknowledged as a way to keep the money in the family instead of making the landlord rich. Millennials who are ready to start a family might be sick of this situation and rightfully so. However, the solution is not going to be buying high and trying to ride through the downturn. Losing that much money, and being underwater on a large mortgage, can be very hard on a marriage and is definitely terrible for our FICO score. A little patience in planning to allow the frozen market to thaw could yield smooth sailing ahead. You can learn about more solutions in the Thrive Budget and Real Estate sections of The ABCs of Money, 5th edition. There are lots of ways that we can save thousands of dollars annually with smarter big ticket choices. Few of us are shopaholics who eat avocado toast at restaurants every night (the budget solutions outlined by so many financial authors). Wisdom is the cure. Let’s stop making everybody else rich and keep the money in the family.  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Nov. 30, 2023 to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest The Magnificent 7 Drag NASDAQ into Another Correction Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World Summer Sweepstakes 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. Tesla's Model Y is the Bestselling Car in the World. 2023 Company of the Year Sell in May and Go Away? Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. The Debt Ceiling Crisis. What's at Stake? Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Empty Office Buildings & Malls. Frozen Housing Market. The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks The Debt Ceiling. Will the U.S. Stop Paying Bills in June? Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 8 Fires the Federal Reserve Board Needs to Put Out. 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. The 2 Best Solar Stocks Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Rebalance By the End of March Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Are You Anxious or Depressed over Money? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. You Stream all the Channels. Should You Invest, Too? NASDAQ is Still Down -26%. Are Meta & Snap a Buy? 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 2023 Crystal Ball for Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Cannabis, Gold, Silver. Tilray: The Constellation Brands of Cannabis New Year, New Healthier You Tesla's $644 Billion Fall From Mars Silver's Quiet Rally. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. Gardeners Creating Sanctuary & Solutions in Food Deserts. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  The Magnificent 7. Alphabet. Amazon. Apple. Meta. Microsoft. Nvidia. Tesla. The Magnificent 7. Why the Weakness on Wall Street? The Wild Ride The Magnificent 7 have been spectacular throughout the entire 21st Century. However, the ride of late has been a bit wild. As you can see in the chart below, Tesla lost -66% in 2022 – one of the worst performers of the year. However, it is still the strongest performer of the seven companies, with a 9-fold increase in share price over the 5-year period. In 2022, the NASDAQ Composite Index plunged -33% compared to the S&P500 decline of -19.44%.  So far this year, the NASDAQ is up 21.6%, even with the -11.8% retreat we’ve seen since July 28, 2023. The Magnificent 7 is boasting share price gains of 34%-182% year to date, even with the sell-off of the last few days. (The high of the NASDAQ Composite Index was 16,212, which was set on Nov. 19, 2021.) Volatility is why regular rebalancing is so important. (More on that below.) Here’s where things stand at this time.  The revenue growth in almost all of these companies is still respectable (and eyepopping in the case of AI-company Nvidia). So, that doesn’t explain the pullback. What is causing investors to be skittish about these Wall Street All-Stars, and will it continue? In this blog, we’ll look at: Earnings Prices Outlook Rebalancing And here’s more on each point. Earnings Most of the Magnificent 7 have reported their earnings, with the exception of Apple (Nov. 2) and Nvidia (Nov. 21). While the earnings of the companies that have reported remain noteworthy, particularly given the war, hardships and competition throughout the world, the net profit margins are moderating. Tesla is trading down -15% since it reported earnings on October 18, 2023. The company saw its revenue increase by just 9% in the 3rd quarter of 2023, after reporting double-digit growth for the past decade. $1.853 billion in net income was a drop of -44% from the prior year’s $3.3 billion. Alphabet and Meta increased revenue by 11% and 23%, respectively, while retaining profit margins of 26% and 23%. Yet both saw a drop in share price after reporting their 3Q 2023 results. Meta’s guidance calls for 4Q 2023 revenue of $36.5-$40 billion, which is an increase of 13.5%-24.3% year over year. However, investors were spooked by CFO Susan Li’s admission that the war between Israel and Hamas was negatively impacting ad sales, which make up 98.5% of Meta’s revenue. Ruth Porat, the President and Chief Investment Officer; CFO, Alphabet and Google, dodged the question of whether the conflict would impact ad spend in the 3Q 2023 earnings call. Is that why the sell-off of Alphabet Inc. (Google) was so severe (-9.5% over the last 5 days)? Is there something else at play? Prices “We’re valuing based upon what it will be worth in 3 years.” Wall Street insider explaining why he was excited to buy Nvidia at a 108 price-earnings ratio. Prices of stocks are elevated and share prices of the Magnificent 7 are astronomical. As you can see in the Magnificent 7 Stock Report Card below, P/Es are light years above the average P/E of 17.  Magnificent 7 Stock Report Card. NataliePace.com. Yes, companies with high growth can support a higher P/E. However, like Nvidia, Tesla’s market cap soared to a trillion when the company had earnings of only $5 billion. It’s now worth $655 billion, down -35% (with a still elevated PE of 66). The boom of Artificial Intelligence is real, as you can see in Nvidia’s revenue growth. However, competition, supply chain disruptions, restrictions on semiconductor sales to China (where 19% of Nvidia’s revenue comes from), a recession, war, and other headwinds could put plenty of obstacles in Nvidia’s road to earning its (almost) trillion dollar valuation. Whenever there is a game-changing innovation like AI, there are always fits and starts on the road to success, just as we saw with the Internet in 1999 – when many companies were completely wiped out, while others saw their share price plunge by 78% and take 15 years to recover. Nvidia looks like the one that will survive and thrive any fallout. However, macroeconomic challenges can cause all equities to go underwater. The biggest headwind for Nvidia is the share price, which is trading at 97.41 times earnings. The share price has fallen $100 over the past two months – -19.4% . What will happen over the next few weeks when Apple and Nvidia report earnings? Outlook On Nov. 2, 2023, all eyes will be on Apple to determine whether the Chinese ban on the iPhone (and launch of a competitive Huawei smart phone) will make the company miss their earnings forecast. As I mentioned in my Sept. 9, 2023 blog, even if Apple hits their $81.8 billion revenue target, it will be -9.3% lower than the Sept. quarter of 2022. It’s hard to imagine that investors are going to be thrilled with this earnings report, unless there is an upside surprise that no one sees coming. Nvidia is expecting another gangbuster earnings report. Judging by the amount of times AI was mentioned in the earnings calls and press releases of the other Magnificent 7, nothing is going to prevent the company from meeting or exceeding earnings expectations, when it reports on Nov. 21, 2023. However, as we’ve seen in the other reports, the analysts are looking for any sign of weakness in the forward outlook. As the outlook becomes less certain, it’s difficult to justify such lofty share prices . Whale investors are forward-thinking. Rebalancing The Magnificent 7 have soared to interstellar heights and have sunk back to Earth multiple times over the past five years. That is why capturing gains and rebalancing is such an important tool in our wealth plan. By using our pie chart system, your slices prompt you to capture gains when stocks shoot the moon, and buy low when they crash. Rebalancing 1-3 times a year is a buy low, sell high plan on auto-pilot that takes the emotions out of investing, and prompts us to employ this time-proven investing rule. Bottom line The Magnificent 7 companies are so strong because they are embedded in every part of our lives. I’m writing in a Word document, while looking up data on MSN and Google search, from my MacBook Air and iPhone. All of these companies are remodeling every room in their business with artificial intelligence. Electric vehicles are the fastest growing vertical in the auto industry. However, war, unsustainably high post-pandemic debt loads, inflation, supply constraints and economic uncertainty will impact almost all of these businesses. Tight budgets curtail consumer spending, which causes businesses to cut their ad spend. It is rare for a company to swim upstream, when all of Wall Street is crashing. It’s not a matter of jumping all in or all out. Market timing doesn’t work. However, acting our age and overweighting safe when there are economic storms on the horizon is a sound strategy – and is something we’ve seen the whales do over the last two years, as they trim back on their at-risk positions and move into a safer yield. (Bonds are tricky, but can be safer if we adhere to a few, simple rules.) Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified, and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Halloween (10.31.2023) to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400). Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Halloween to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400). Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Cruise Ships Give Freebies to Investors. Should You Take the Bait? Should You Take a Cruise? Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World Summer Sweepstakes 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. Tesla's Model Y is the Bestselling Car in the World. 2023 Company of the Year Sell in May and Go Away? Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. The Debt Ceiling Crisis. What's at Stake? Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Empty Office Buildings & Malls. Frozen Housing Market. The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks The Debt Ceiling. Will the U.S. Stop Paying Bills in June? Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 8 Fires the Federal Reserve Board Needs to Put Out. 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. The 2 Best Solar Stocks Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Rebalance By the End of March Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Are You Anxious or Depressed over Money? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. You Stream all the Channels. Should You Invest, Too? NASDAQ is Still Down -26%. Are Meta & Snap a Buy? 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 2023 Crystal Ball for Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Cannabis, Gold, Silver. Tilray: The Constellation Brands of Cannabis New Year, New Healthier You Tesla's $644 Billion Fall From Mars Silver's Quiet Rally. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. Gardeners Creating Sanctuary & Solutions in Food Deserts. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  Koru, the 410' superyacht designed by Oceanco for Jeff Bezos. Cruise Ships Reward You for Investing. Is it Worth It? Cruise ships give shareholders spending money. Should you take the bait? Or is it more like those free vacations, where you go home with a timeshare (money pit) that you didn’t know you wanted, and can’t get rid of? Are cruise ships an adventure, a treasure trove, a great investment, CO2 horrors or a huge money pit? Revenue Growth Cruise ships are definitely back in business. According to the Royal Caribbean blog, when cruise ships started up after the pandemic, occupancy rates were sometimes as low as 30%. Today, the Big 3 (Royal Caribbean Group, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and Carnival Corporation) are all at 100% capacity. If we line up the revenue, the business looks downright exciting, with year-over-year revenue growth of 60-86%. 2023 annual revenue should be close to the pre-pandemic highs in 2019. Cruise ships are turning a profit this year for the first time since 2019 – before the pandemic. The companies are buying new ships (to retire old ones), are setting out asea with all of their cabins full, and are reducing debt. The goal for many of the companies is to return to investment grade in their credit rating.  Cruise Ship Stock Report Card. NataliePace.com. All rights reserved. However, before we get excited and slide into a pool of the mandatory 100+ shares for an extra $100-$250 of spending money on our next cruise, it’s important to understand some of the significant challenges that cruise ships face. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at how they survived the pandemic and what rules, regulations and debt are part of the industry’s post-pandemic world. Here are some of the things we’ll cover. Operating in the Red Junk Bonds & High Fuel Costs Natural and Unnatural Disasters Carbon Footprint Stock Volatility And here is more information on each point. Operating in the Red Norwegian and Royal Caribbean both lost over $2 billion in 2022, while Carnival lost over $6 billion. The 2023 revenue growth and full-to-capacity cabins will help the 2023 margins to recover. However, the entire industry is heavily indebted – spending more on interest than on fuel, which is typically the largest line-item. Junk Bonds & High Fuel Costs The Top 3 cruise ship companies all carry junk bond ratings. Interest rates on their debt can run as high as 11.5%. Gasoline costs for Royal Caribbean are expected to be $1.14 billion this year, with interest at $1.27-$1.28 billion. The top three companies have over $60 billion in debt, with Carnival carrying the largest load at $29.5 billion in long-term debt. Oil prices are very high, at $85.35 a barrel. With so much war and economic uncertainty in the world, and with OPEC cutting production, the U.S. Energy Information Administration is forecasting $95/barrel oil prices in 2024. Higher fuel prices could raise fuel costs by 11% in 2024, which amounts to a hundred million dollars or more for each company – if the EIA projections are spot on. This will make it challenging for cruise ships to return to investment grade – particularly if anything causes occupancy rates to fall. The low credit quality, massive leverage and rising fuel costs are likely the culprits that are causing the share prices of Carnival and Norwegian to trade close to their 5-year low. Royal Caribbean has a slightly higher share price on the 5-year range, and also a slightly higher credit rating, at BB- (still junk status). Natural and Unnatural Disasters Cruise ships are a very safe form of travel. However, having every cabin full and people packed in can also be a breeding ground for viruses. The pandemic was one of the worst disasters to hit the cruise ship industry since the sinking of the Titanic, when passengers were marooned and confined to their cabins before the industry was ultimately shut down. However, cruise ships have also made headlines for food poisoning (salmonella and e coli) and violent storms. (Click to see a report of a torrential downpour that flooded hallways and made many passengers very nauseated from May 29, 2023.) There has also been a post-pandemic spike in the Cruise Ship Virus – Norovirus – that causes diarrhea outbreaks, according to the CDC. While everyone is excited at the first profits cruise ships have shown since 2019, could the cause of profits (people packed into every square inch) also come with health risks? We’ve seen an increase in very severe storms in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Will this negatively impact voyages during Hurricane Season, cutting into revenue forecasts? Carbon Footprint Not only is gasoline expensive on a balance sheet, it’s very, very hard on the planet. (Greta Thunberg took a sailing ship when she came to speak at the UN about climate crisis.) Cruise ships use almost half a million gallons of gasoline for a 7-day cruise for 3000 people. While a 747 averages about 91 mpg/passenger, a cruise ship is more like 14 mpg/passenger. Will potential customers be put off by the CO2 footprint? On a cruise ship, a lot of the time is spent on the ship doing things that you might do in Vegas – eating, gambling or playing in a swimming pool. In a lot of ways, it’s just Vegas on water. For many cruises, the port of call stops last only a few hours – meaning you’re limited to tourist destinations near the harbor, rather than immersing yourself in the local culture. Sure, you get to gaze out at sea, if you want to brave the high winds to do that – something most people avoid. Is there an adventure we might take with friends, family and our sacred beloved that is affordable and planet-friendly – one that will become a treasured memory? Are we just jumping onboard the cruise ship because we think it is low-cost? Have we added in all of the mandatory taxes, tips and port fees, and “extras,” like costs for specialty restaurants, alcoholic drinks, excursions, exercise classes and even WIFI? Stock Volatility Cruise ships aren’t the only companies to offer incentives to their shareholders. Berkshire Hathaway has a bazaar at its meetings, where many of the companies owned by BH offer discounts on their products. However, an investment in Berkshire is trading close to its 5-year high, while many of the cruise ship stocks are down -40% (Royal Caribbean) to -75-80% (Norwegian and Carnival). Are we being penny wise and pound foolish in purchasing cruise ship shares for a cash credit on our vacation? Bottom Line While 2023 is a recovery year for cruise ships and the first year of profits since 2019, it’s not all smooth sailing for the companies or their shareholders. The headwinds for the industry include hurricanes, pandemics, foodborne and airborne diseases, massive debt, high fuel costs and an astonishingly high CO2 footprint. Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified, and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Halloween (10.31.2023) to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400). Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Halloween to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400). Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for SustainabilityFinancial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World Summer Sweepstakes 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. Tesla's Model Y is the Bestselling Car in the World. 2023 Company of the Year Sell in May and Go Away? Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. The Debt Ceiling Crisis. What's at Stake? Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Empty Office Buildings & Malls. Frozen Housing Market. The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks The Debt Ceiling. Will the U.S. Stop Paying Bills in June? Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 8 Fires the Federal Reserve Board Needs to Put Out. 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. The 2 Best Solar Stocks Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Rebalance By the End of March Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Are You Anxious or Depressed over Money? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. You Stream all the Channels. Should You Invest, Too? NASDAQ is Still Down -26%. Are Meta & Snap a Buy? 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 2023 Crystal Ball for Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Cannabis, Gold, Silver. Tilray: The Constellation Brands of Cannabis New Year, New Healthier You Tesla's $644 Billion Fall From Mars Silver's Quiet Rally. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. Gardeners Creating Sanctuary & Solutions in Food Deserts. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  Bonds. Banks. The Treacherous Landscape of Keeping Our Money Safe. I’ve been reading Samuel Pepys diary. In it he describes the Great Fire of London, when he stashed his gold coins in a carriage, and then had his wife and father bury it in the yard of their country home. Over a year later in the dead of night, he and a trusted friend dug it up in the shadows, out of sight (they hoped) from their neighbors. After the first lode was recovered, they tallied everything up and discovered they were still about 100 coins shy of the total. So they spent the rest of the night sifting through dirt to try and find the missing pieces. In the end, Pepys was relieved that they had only lost about 20 to 30 gold coins. Pepys remarked in his diary, “How painful it is sometimes to keep money, as well as to get it.” This is a sentiment many bond investors and even bank depositors have felt this year, after learning that bonds lost more than stocks in 2022, and watching four major U.S. banks fail. First Republic Bank was A- rated when it had to be rescued. Heartland Tri-State Bank of Kansas didn’t make as many headlines as Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic did, when it failed in July 2023.  We’ve been warning against bonds since 2011. Savers and fixed income investors weren’t being paid to take on the risk, when rock-bottom interest rates encouraged speculation and discouraged pensioners and bondholders with almost no Return On Investment. Asset prices (stocks and real estate) and leverage (debt) soared to new heights, while long-term bonds lost value, and became illiquid and negative-yielding. There have been many failures attributed to bad bond bets. MF Global was one of the more high-profile bankruptcies in 2011. Silicon Valley Bank is another tragic example, as is the $100 billion paper bond losses on the books of the Bank of America. However, how many of us are aware that we are likely holding some of this dodgy paper in our own retirement accounts – even if it is being managed by a fiduciary financial advisor? A Better Way to Get Safe At the bottom of the Great Recession, it was fairly easy to invest in real estate, and do quite well. Anyone with a great deal of money in their liquid assets on the safe side could consider having a safe income-producing hard asset (like a 2nd home that they rented out) that they had purchased for a good price. The ongoing income was a safer yield than bonds were. Real estate is unaffordable in most areas these days. So, that strategy is on pause for now. However, there are other ways to produce income by thinking creatively about all of the bills we pay. (We cover this in depth at our Financial Freedom Retreat.) Of course, we’re always going to need liquidity and cash, too, which means figuring out a way to protect our money from losses, while taking advantage of the 5.5% interest rates that are available this year. This is tricky, but doable. Below are the areas we’ll cover in this blog. Bonds. Tricky, but Doable. Keep the Terms Short and the Creditworthiness High Duration Risk Credit Risk Liquidity FDIC. CDIC. Diversification SIPC. Money Market Funds. Bond Funds and Annuities. Employer Retirement Plans One More Rate Hike? And here is more information on each point. Bonds. Tricky, but Doable. I’m seeing a lot of managed plans that are supposed to be conservative, which are getting loaded up with risky junk bonds and loan products. Getting safe is not as simple as asking your fiduciary financial advisor to protect your wealth. It’s important to know what you own and why, and to read the fine print on your statements. Even highly educated, successful business people can have trouble reading their statements, especially when the information that they’re being told is quite different from what is lying there in the fine print on the statement itself. (Are you verifying what you own with the fine print, or just having faith in what you’re being told?) As just one example (there are many), one of my clients had been told that he was earning 5-7% yield on his portfolio, and that his safe investments protected him from all of the losses in stocks. The statement itself revealed that this was not the truth at all. Due to the losses in the value of the bonds, the return was 1.7% year to date (not 5-7%), compared to 13.9% ROI in stocks. 2022 was a down year for equities. However, stocks had a gangbuster 2021. Even with 2022’s poor performance, stocks earned 7.3% annualized over the 3-year period and 10-12.5% over the 10-year period.  Keep the Terms Short and the Creditworthiness High In 2024, the best policy for bonds is going to be to continue to keep the terms short, and the credit worthiness high. The reason for that is duration risk and credit risk. According to the Financial Stability Report released by the Federal Reserve Board on Oct. 20, 2023, “Gross leverage—the ratio of debt to assets—of all publicly traded nonfinancial firms remained high by historical standards.” Net leverage is also elevated. When companies that are already burdened with high debt hit troubled times, one of the options that has to be thrown on the table is debt restructuring through bankruptcy proceedings. Johnson & Johnson, a AAA-rated Dow Jones Industrial Average component, is seeking bankruptcy protection to help settle its talc lawsuit liabilities. (Companies can restructure debt obligations while remaining in business. We’ve seen this in the airlines, retail and automakers industries.) Duration Risk “I am more concerned with the return of my money than the return on my money,” Will Rogers. When are you supposed to get your money back? Is it after you will have been dead for a couple of decades? When someone makes a promise to pay you back, it’s a good idea to know exactly when that’s going to occur, and what events might happen in between now and then that might prevent them from keeping their promise of paying you back. Some businesses are still borrowing for terms longer than 30 years. Even an AA+ rated company, like Apple, can run into challenges over that long of a period of time, just like AAA- Johnson & Johnson is currently facing. If the company gets a credit downgrade or needs to raise money again at a higher interest rate, the value of your existing bond plunges. There is an elevated risk in long-term bonds at this time, partly due to rampant leverage in today’s Debt World. However, there is also a lot of war, political instability, supply chain bottlenecks, inflation, strikes and other challenges to the peace and prosperity of Main Street and Wall Street. Typically, you’ll get a higher interest rate for taking on the additional risk of duration. However, we’re currently getting paid more for short-term bonds than long-term. That will change, which is why annual rebalancing of our wealth plan is important. Credit Risk With over half of the S&P 500 at or near junk-bond status, including most American banks, there are a lot of reasons to be conservative about who you loan money to (in your bond) and how long they have before they have to give it back.  Commercial real estate is one industry that is vulnerable right now. However, casinos, cruise ships, hotels, airlines and auto manufacturers are also highly leveraged with low (junk bond) credit ratings. At minimum, it’s important to know the credit rating, leverage, revenue growth and future prospects of the entity you’re loaning the money to (not just the credit rating, as we learned with First Republic Bank and Johnson and Johnson). Liquidity Having access to your money is key, particularly in uncertain times. However, if you buy a risky bond, you might have difficulty finding someone to take it off your hands. If you are able to find a buyer, they’re going to want to buy it on the cheap. That is another reason why we don’t want to reach for yield in today’s overleveraged, volatile world. We risk having our safe assets become illiquid. Now would be a good time to separate the short-term, high quality bonds in our portfolio from the toxic, overleveraged, long-term. Yes, there is a chance that interest rates will start being cut in the future (as soon as late 2024?). While in a normal world, that would help the value of our existing bonds to increase, the matter is complicated when the bonds are low quality and long-term (unless the maturity date is very near). Unless there is a massive growth streak, these firms may have to unload some of their obligations in order to keep operating. Debt restructuring means everyone with a claim gets paid less than par. (Shareholders typically get shafted, which is why stocks are riskier than bonds.) FDIC. CDIC. When Silicon Valley Bank failed, there was one uninsured depositor with over $5 billion, and many other uninsured depositors, as well. I’m sure that played into why the FDIC, Treasury and Federal Reserve came together to embrace a rule that allowed them to make a one-time exception and cover uninsured depositors. These government institutions have taken steps since then to force banks to improve their balance sheets because they do not want to have any more bailouts. How much money do you have sitting at your bank? Is it above the FDIC levels? Why not consider a few FDIC-insured CDs in other creditworthy banks? Federally insured short-term CDs are paying a decent interest rate these days. Diversification Consider diversifying across banks, so that our wealth is federally insured as much as possible. We might also consider having treasury bills (in our own country).  Here again, keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high. Long-term government bonds lost -26% of their value last year. They pay less than the short-term issues. Many brokerages make it easy to purchase short-term treasuries within our self-directed retirement accounts. Consider having rolling short-term maturity dates. As the landscape for bonds changes, there will come a time to start adding mid-term duration for the higher credit quality countries and companies with good growth prospects on the horizon. For now, there is a lot of risk in corporate bonds. However, there are also a few opportunities. Again, one must step gingerly to avoid illiquidity, negative yield, and principal loss. However, diversifying, while keeping the terms short (1-3 years) and the creditworthiness high, will go a long way to protecting us from today’s volatile, uncertain world. SIPC. Money Market Funds. Money market funds can lose value and are not FDIC insured. When they lose favor, the share price can plunge as investors run for the exits. (Money market funds had to be rescued in the Great Recession.) The SIPC is not as well-funded or as safe as federally insured banks. There are loopholes in the bank sweep programs that many brokerages offer as a way to get our cash FDIC-insured. I outline a lot of these challenges in my blog from June 2021. (Click to access.) Money market funds no longer have redemption gates. However, they are required to impose liquidity fees if too many people leave at the same time. Bond Funds and Annuities. Bond funds are also losing value. Many have expenses that knock the yield down by one percent or more. Bond funds, pension funds and insurance companies (annuity providers) have investments in illiquid long-term bonds; they loan to commercial real estate and other projects that will need to borrow in 2024 at a much higher rate than they did between 2009 and 2021. According to the Financial Stability Report, “Bond and loan funds that hold assets that can become illiquid during periods of stress remained susceptible to large redemptions. Life insurers continued to rely on a higher-than-average share of runnable liabilities.” Annuities are not federally insured; they are backed by the company that issues the promise. If they are tied to an index, they might also lose value in a recession. Employer Retirement Plans It can be difficult to get safe from the bond challenges in our employer retirement account. If we read the fine print on what is offered in the fixed income or safe category, and are confident that we have selected the best choice, then that’s a good start. However, there are a few other things to consider. One might be to deposit only up to the employer’s match into your employer retirement account, and put the rest into self-directed retirement accounts, including a Health Savings Account (if you’re an American). You’ll have more freedom and choices in your self-directed accounts than the couple of dozen mutual fund options available in your 401K or RSP. Having a more holistic approach to our wealth plan, rather than just depositing into our 401(k) or RSP and checking off the boxes as best we can, will make a huge difference in our quality of life today, and our security tomorrow. We cover all of this at our Financial Freedom Retreat, which is a complete money makeover. One More Rate Hike? The Summary of Economic Projections from the September 20, 2023 FOMC meeting indicated that there could be another rate hike in the November or December 2023 meeting, which is negative for bond values. The board members are also projecting rate cuts in 2024, which is positive. Of course, all of this is fluid and reliant on incoming data. According to Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell in a speech to the Economic Club of New York, “Additional evidence of persistently above-trend growth, or that tightness in the labor market is no longer easing, could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy.” That’s Fed-speak for “interest rates could rise.” This uncertainty may appear to make it more difficult to separate the toxic bonds from those that will return to full value and get paid back in full, and will be something that most financial advisors will cite as a reason to do nothing. However, a general rule is that higher credit quality and shorter terms will reduce your risk, while risky bonds could continue to lose value due to the potential of a credit downgrade or debt restructuring (bankruptcy). A harsh recession would be the reason that interest rates get cut, which will be hard for the low credit quality companies to endure without an event that would be negative for bondholders. If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your personal plan, we offer that through our private coaching. Email info@NataliePace.com for pricing and information. Bottom Line Today my thoughts and prayers are with anyone displaced from their home, embroiled in the horrors of war, or trying to make ends meet in a world of inflation when life doesn’t add up. These hardships and tragedies are heartbreaking. And they also add risk to all of us. There’s a reason why peace and prosperity are interlinked so often in grammar. War, natural disasters, pandemics, bank failures, supply chain bottlenecks, skyrocketing debt, inflation, nationalism and elevated asset prices can be perilous to our fiscal health. Navigating to safety in such an environment requires careful planning and execution. While protecting our wealth is not going to end war and create peace on the planet, it can put us in a better position of operating from strength instead of fear, anger and distress. A healthier, wealthier you can make positive contributions to humanity and our shared home planet.  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Halloween to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400). Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details.  Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest 7 Rules of Investing Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World Summer Sweepstakes 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. Tesla's Model Y is the Bestselling Car in the World. 2023 Company of the Year Sell in May and Go Away? Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. The Debt Ceiling Crisis. What's at Stake? Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Empty Office Buildings & Malls. Frozen Housing Market. The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks The Debt Ceiling. Will the U.S. Stop Paying Bills in June? Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 8 Fires the Federal Reserve Board Needs to Put Out. 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. The 2 Best Solar Stocks Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Rebalance By the End of March Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Are You Anxious or Depressed over Money? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. You Stream all the Channels. Should You Invest, Too? NASDAQ is Still Down -26%. Are Meta & Snap a Buy? 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 2023 Crystal Ball for Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Cannabis, Gold, Silver. Tilray: The Constellation Brands of Cannabis New Year, New Healthier You Tesla's $644 Billion Fall From Mars Silver's Quiet Rally. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. Gardeners Creating Sanctuary & Solutions in Food Deserts. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors.  7 Rules of Investing. In times of uncertainty, it helps to go back to the basics. Rather than hope and pray that things go well – that our wealth is growing but also protected from losses – it’s a better idea to do a quick checkup to make sure that we are adhering to time-proven wealth strategies. Even if someone else is tasked with managing our money, it will be our gain (woohoo!) or loss (ouch), if the plan isn’t properly protected. Most managed plans do whatever the market does, while a properly diversified plan earns gains in bull markets and protects us from losses in bear markets and recessions. That’s why it’s important for us to be the boss of our money, and seek out an unbiased 2nd opinion on our current plan from someone who understands Modern Portfolio Theory. (All broker-salesmen say they know this, but few actually employ it.) Below are two examples of people who had faith that their financial advisor was protecting and diversifying them, and telling them the truth about that, when in fact they had a great deal to lose. E had suffered a lot of losses during the Great Recession, both in stocks and in real estate. She told her financial advisor that she wanted a conservative allocation. Her broker-salesman put her into dividend-paying stocks. E was actually invested 87% in stocks, which is appropriate if you’re about 13 years old. E was close to retirement. In a downturn, she was vulnerable to losing half or more of her wealth. F wanted to get income while also protecting his principal. His fiduciary financial advisor told him he was earning 5-7% income on his conservative investments. Yet his own statement reflected that he was really only earning 1.8%, when you factor in how much he had lost on the risky bonds that his broker purchased. Should he just hold the bonds to term, even though he had already lost tens of thousands in principal? Many of the bonds were very long-term, in addition to having low credit quality. As just one example, he had a junk bond that wouldn’t pay him back until 2074 (decades after he has died). In the meantime, it was losing a lot of money, with the potential of more principal losses on the horizon. So, what are the basics of investing? Here are some of the things we will cover in this blog. 1. Always keep a percentage equal to our age safe. 2. Overweight safe if we are nervous or would like a more conservative plan. 3. Diversify. 4. Know what is safe in a world where bonds are losing more than stocks, and banks are failing. 5. Rebalance regularly. 6. When we wait for the headlines, we’re late. 7. Stick to our plan. And here is more information on each point. 1. Always keep a percentage equal to our age safe. As we get closer to retirement, we can’t afford to lose money. Buy and hold is built on the idea that over time we can make up any losses. However, using bull markets to earn back losses is really just riding a Wall Street rollercoaster. Whether we are young or old, losing a great deal of our wealth will lower our FICO score. It might make it difficult for us to pay our bills, or, in the worst case scenario, we might lose our home. Protecting our principal from losses on an age-appropriate basis is an easy way to ensure a that our financial home is protected from any market downturn. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped -55% in the Great Recession (down to 6549) and took almost seven years to return to its Oct. 2007 highs. The NASDAQ Composite Index plunged -78% in the Dot Com Recession and took 15 years to crawl back to its March 2000 level.
2. Overweight safe if we are nervous, or would like a more conservative plan. Those people who overweighted safe (as our sample pie charts and email notifications prompted them to do) earned gains in the Dot Com and the Great Recessions, when most people lost more than half of their wealth. The strategy also outperformed the bull markets in between. When we are worried about the economy, or are interested in a more conservative allocation, just overweight a little safe – act a little older than we are. Stocks really are the best performers over time, as you can see it in the chart below. However, equities and equity funds can also be the most volatile, and typically suffer the greatest losses during bear markets. Most people don’t buy low because they can’t. They’ve lost too much money.  3. Diversify You might notice from the chart above that small companies perform better than large companies. As you can see in the chart below, the NASDAQ Composite Index (with more growth stocks) far outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average (with more value-oriented holdings) over the five-year period.  The NASDAQ Composite Index (with more growth stocks, in blue) outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average (more "value," in magenta) over most of the past 20 years, including the 5-year period. Source: MSN.com. (c) Microsoft. Used with permission. We can increase performance by making sure that we have value and growth, small, mid, and large caps, and four hot industries. Check out the sample pie chart below. If you would like to personalize your own sample pie chart, just click to access our free web app, or email info@NataliePace.com with FREE WEB APP in the subject line.  4. Know what is safe in a world where bonds are losing more than stocks and banks are failing.  The bank failures of March seem far away, however, all financial services companies remain at risk, which is why we continue to underweight banks and the financial industry in our sample pie charts. A lot of that has to do with the industry’s exposure to long-term bonds in vulnerable high-debt industries, with the greatest concern being commercial real estate. There are ways to earn a reasonable return that is pretty safe. It’s tricky, however. In short, we want to keep the credit worthiness high, and the duration short. We’re going to be hosting a What’s Safe? Bond Master Class this Saturday, where we will be discussing FDIC, SIPC, MMFs, CDs, bonds, annuities and more. If you are interested in joining us, email info@nataliepace.com with Bond Master Class in the subject line. 5. Rebalance regularly. Regular rebalancing is an important part of our wealth plan. Obsessively watching our portfolio is not a good idea. Neither is trying to time the markets. Once, twice, or three times a year rebalancing ensures that we are capturing gains and increasing our wealth, while protecting our investments from downturns. It is also a Buy Low, Sell High plan on autopilot. 6. When we wait for the headlines, we’re late. One of the reasons why market timing doesn’t work is that most of us are waiting for the headlines as our prompt on what to do. However, as you can see in the chart below, the recession doesn’t get announced until close to the stock market bottom. So, if we wait for the recession announcement, we’ll actually be selling low. Conversely, when everyone is excited about all the gains in the market, we’re often very close to the market top. That is why regular rebalancing and proper diversification, while keeping the right amount safe from principal losses, works better than market timing, Buy & Hold or headlines.  7. Stick to our plan. There is a lot of financial noise swirling around us all of the time. Marketing whizzes cloak themselves as financial geniuses, and then punch our emotions to a 10 in order to sell us the only thing that’s going to work when everything goes to hell in a handbasket (a product they are profiting from promoting, which can sometimes be a Pump and Dump Scheme). If we want to gamble on a meme or social media video, then consider doing so in one of our hot slices, or as an education allotment in our budget. The crypto winter, the cannabis crash and the gold/silver doldrums have taught many of us to make sure that we’re not gambling or betting the farm on any one get-rich-quick scheme. Bottom Line It’s important for us to take ownership of our wealth plan, and be the boss of our money. Learning the basics of life math can help us build a solid financial house that can protect our wealth from the volatility of stocks and the vulnerability of bonds, while also allowing us to keep compounding gains. There are, of course, a few tricks to the trade. For a complete money makeover, consider joining us at our New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat January 13-15th, 2024 online. Register by Halloween and you will receive the lowest price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value: $400). Email info@nataliepace.com to learn more and register now. Chances are we’re still a little complacent, even if we are also a little worried. That’s because the markets have recovered 12.8% of last year’s -19.6% losses. Never confuse a bull market with wisdom! Wisdom and time-proven 21st Century strategies are the cure. Many people, including educated men and women, often get into trouble when they neglect to follow simple and fundamental rules of the type provided [by Natalie]. This is why I recommend them with enthusiasm." Professor Gary S. Becker. Dr. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics for his theories on human capital Join us at our Jan. 13-15, 2024 New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Learn nest egg strategies, how to get hot and diversified, and 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 info@NataliePace.com to register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer (link below) and on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register by Halloween (10.31.2023) to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400).  Join us for our Online New Year, New You Financial Freedom Retreat. Jan. 13-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com or call 310-430-2397 to learn more. Register by Halloween to receive the best price and a complimentary 50-minute private prosperity coaching session (value $400). Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. Join us for our Restormel Royal Immersive Adventure Retreat. March 8-15, 2024. Email info@NataliePace.com to learn more. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. Click for testimonials, pricing, hours & details. There is very limited availability, and you must register early to ensure that you get the exact room you want. This retreat includes an all-access pass to all of our online training for a full year for two!  Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of 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 5th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is were released in 2021. 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 Apple Podcast. Watch videoconferences and webinars on Youtube. Other Blogs of Interest Air B N Bust? Santa Rally 2023 or Time to Get Defensive? Barbie. Oppenheimer. Strikes. Streaming Wars. Netflix. Monero: A Token of Trust? 13 Lifestyle Choices to Reduce Waste, Pollution & CO2 & Save a Boatload of Dough. China Bans Apple 11-Point Green Checklist for Schools. Artificial Intelligence and Nvidia's Blockbuster Earnings Report Biotech in a Post-Pandemic World Summer Sweepstakes 10 Wealth Secrets of Billionaires and Royals. What Happened to Cannabis? Bank of America has $100 Billion in Bond Losses (on Paper) The USA AAA Credit Rating is on a Negative Watch. Lithium. Essential to EV Life. I'm Just Not Good at Investing. Investors Ask Natalie. Should I Buy an S&P500 Index Fund? Investors Ask Natalie. Bonds Lost More than Stocks in 2022. Tesla's Model Y is the Bestselling Car in the World. 2023 Company of the Year Sell in May and Go Away? Do Cybersecurity Risks Create Investor Opportunities? Writers Strike, While Streaming CEOs Rake In Hundreds of Millions Annually. I Lost $100,000. Investors Ask Natalie. Artificial Intelligence Report. Micron Banned in China. Intel Slashes Dividend. Buffett Loses $23 Billion. Branson's Virgin Orbit Declares Bankruptcy. Insurance Company Risks. Schwab Loses $41 Billion in Cash Deposits. The Debt Ceiling Crisis. What's at Stake? Fiat. Crypto. Gold. BRICS. Real Estate. Alternative Investments. BRICS Currency. Will the Dollar Become Extinct? Empty Office Buildings & Malls. Frozen Housing Market. The Online Global Earth Gratitude Celebration 7 Green Life Hacks The Debt Ceiling. Will the U.S. Stop Paying Bills in June? Fossil Fuels Touch Every Part of Our Lives Are There Any Safe, Green Banks? 8 Fires the Federal Reserve Board Needs to Put Out. 7 Ways to Stash Your Cash Now. Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank Failure. The 2 Best Solar Stocks Which Countries Offer the Highest Yield for the Lowest Risk? Rebalance By the End of March Solar, EVs, Housing, HSAs -- the Highest-Yield in 2023? Are You Anxious or Depressed over Money? Why We Are Underweighting Banks and the Financial Industry. You Stream all the Channels. Should You Invest, Too? NASDAQ is Still Down -26%. Are Meta & Snap a Buy? 2023 Bond Strategy Emotions are Not Your Friend in Investing Investor IQ Test Investor IQ Test Answers Bonds Lost -26%, Silver Held Strong. 2023 Crystal Ball for Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Cannabis, Gold, Silver. Tilray: The Constellation Brands of Cannabis New Year, New Healthier You Tesla's $644 Billion Fall From Mars Silver's Quiet Rally. 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 12-Step Guide to Successful Investing. Gardeners Creating Sanctuary & Solutions in Food Deserts. The Bank Bail-in Plan on Your Dime. Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. Answers to the Rebalancing Your Nest Egg IQ Test. 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 or funds 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 a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is 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 and patience. 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. Securities, financial instruments or strategies mentioned herein may not be suitable for all investors. |
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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