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Classic Suze School: The Biggest Mistakes You Make as an Investor · Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)

• 0:09
  Robert: August 13th, 2026. Welcome to the Women and Money podcast
• 0:13
  Robert: as well as everyone smart enough to listen. Hi everybody,
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  Robert: it's Robert, the producer here, and for today's classic Suze School,
• 0:20
  Robert: we're gonna go back a couple of summers ago and
• 0:23
  Robert: play you the main lesson about the biggest mistakes you
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  Robert: may be making when you invest. Enjoy.
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  Suze: So, I was thinking to myself, as many of you
• 0:38
  Suze: were sending me emails, and I was realizing that so
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  Suze: many of you are making serious mistakes when it comes
• 0:49
  Suze: to investing your money.
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  Suze: Let me tell you what I think are the biggest
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  Suze: mistakes that you make as an investor.
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  Suze: Your first one, seriously, is you look at what you had,
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  Suze: not at what you have.
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  Suze: Write that down.
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  Suze: What do I mean by that?
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  Suze: So, you have a stock that you bought, maybe you
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  Suze: bought 100 shares, maybe 10 shares, maybe 1,000 shares, and
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  Suze: you bought it at $30 a share.
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  Suze: And now that stock, it is all of a sudden
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  Suze: at $110 a share a year or two later and
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  Suze: you are feeling brilliant you are feeling happy and you
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  Suze: are absolutely calculating how much money, that stock has made you.
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  Suze: First of all, a stock doesn't make you money until
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  Suze: you've sold it, OK?
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  Suze: But now it's going down and down, and now it's
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  Suze: at $90 a share.
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  Suze: And you're thinking to yourself, oh my God, I've lost money.
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  Suze: Now you're upset because it's no longer in the $100 area,
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  Suze: now it's in the $90 area.
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  Suze: What you're not thinking about is you still have tripled
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  Suze: your money. You bought that stock at 30.
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  Suze: You didn't buy that stock at 100 something, you bought
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  Suze: it at 30, so you still have a tremendous gain
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  Suze: on your money.
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  Suze: You have to look at what you have, not at
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  Suze: what you had.
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  Suze: You can't look at the gains you had and think
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  Suze: of them as losses. You need to think as a
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  Suze: stock that is a great stock or ETF that's declining.
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  Suze: You can't look at it as a loss. You have
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  Suze: to look at it as a gain.
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  Suze: Again from your original entry point into that stock or ETF.
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  Suze: Now it's possible that you bought it when it was
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  Suze: above 100, and now it's down to 90 to 80.
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  Suze: Now you're looking at losses there.
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  Suze: But then chances are you made the second mistake, and
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  Suze: the second biggest mistake is you don't dollar cost average.
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  Suze: You just don't. You take all of your investment money
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  Suze: that you have, and you buy something, and let's say
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  Suze: you buy it at 100 now.
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  Suze: All of your money is in that stock. You don't
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  Suze: have any more money to put in that stock, and
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  Suze: now it's down at 90, 80, maybe even 70.
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  Suze: It's a great stock, but it's going down.
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  Suze: You don't have the money to now buy it as
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  Suze: it's going down, biggest mistake you will ever make.
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  Suze: Dollar cost averaging, because many of you asked me this,
• 4:20
  Suze: is what is dollar cost averaging that Suze has always
• 4:24
  Suze: talked about?
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  Suze: Let me give you an example. All of you, whether
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  Suze: you know it or not, you are dollar cost averaging
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  Suze: in your employer plans. You know, every single month when
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  Suze: you have money taken out of your paycheck and they
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  Suze: put it into your 401k, 403B, or TSP.
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  Suze: No matter where the market is, the money's going in,
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  Suze: and if the market's down, or if your stocks or
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  Suze: mutual funds are down, your dollars buy more shares. If
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  Suze: the markets are up, your dollars, cause it's always the
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  Suze: same amount every month that's taken out, your dollars will
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  Suze: buy less shares. But over time, your dollars that you've
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  Suze: been purchasing with, the price has been averaged over time.
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  Suze: And so has the amount of shares that you've been purchasing.
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  Suze: So let me give you an example. There's two people.
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  Suze: The very first person has $12,000 that they want to
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  Suze: invest all at once. They love this stock. They are
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  Suze: convinced that it's going up, and therefore they wanna buy
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  Suze: it now.
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  Suze: So, they take all $12,000 and buy this stock that's
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  Suze: $10 a share, so they were able to buy 1,200 shares.
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  Suze: That's what's called lump sum investing, where you take a
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  Suze: lump sum of money, you invest it in something, and
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  Suze: that's it. You don't have any more money to put
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  Suze: in it. All right.
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  Suze: The second person is smart because they've been listening to
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  Suze: the Women and Money podcast, and they've been listening to
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  Suze: me for almost 40 years now, and they've heard me
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  Suze: say the number one rule of investing is dollar cost averaging.
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  Suze: So they decide they also have $12,000 to invest, they're
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  Suze: going to invest it over a year, every 3 months.
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  Suze: Or when it makes sense when the stock moves up
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  Suze: or down, they're going to invest $3,000 at a time.
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  Suze: So, they invest $3,000 when it's at $10 a share,
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  Suze: and they're able to buy 300 shares. Now, all of
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  Suze: a sudden, this was an aggressive stock, it dropped considerably.
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  Suze: And it dropped down to $8 a share.
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  Suze: Now they're smart, so they take another $3,000.
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  Suze: And they buy it at $8 a share, which allows
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  Suze: them to buy 375 shares.
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  Suze: Now the stock starts to turn around.
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  Suze: And they see that it's up at 9, maybe it's
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  Suze: gonna start to go up again.
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  Suze: And here we are almost 3/4 of the way through
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  Suze: the year at this time.
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  Suze: And so, therefore, they take another $3,000 they buy it
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  Suze: again at $9 a share.
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  Suze: And this time they're buying 333 shares. Now, here we
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  Suze: are at the end of the year, and guess what?
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  Suze: It's back at 10.
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  Suze: And so they take their last $3,000 and they invest it,
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  Suze: and they're able to buy 300 shares. Now over that year,
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  Suze: as the stock went down, you saw they were able
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  Suze: to buy more shares. Then when they first did it,
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  Suze: their first purchase, they were able to buy 300 shares,
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  Suze: then they bought 375, then 333, and then again 300.
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  Suze: So after a year, they had accumulated 1,308 shares.
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  Suze: The first person, had 1,200 shares. Remember, they had $12,000.
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  Suze: They invested it all at once. It was at $10
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  Suze: a share.
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  Suze: So they were able to buy 1,200 shares.
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  Suze: Here we are a year later. The first person has
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  Suze: now just broken even. They still have 1,200 shares. The
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  Suze: stock is at 10, so their investment is back to
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  Suze: $12,000 where they were one year ago.
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  Suze: The second person, by dollar cost averaging in this example, has
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  Suze: 1,308 shares. It's back at $10 a share. So now
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  Suze: their $12,000 investment is worth $13,080. They are up $1,080
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  Suze: above what the first person is up.
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  Suze: That is an example of dollar cost averaging.
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  Suze: So, the biggest mistake, one of them, that you make
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  Suze: is when you make an investment, and you invest all
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  Suze: the money that you have, and you don't have anything
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  Suze: else to put in or take advantage of it when
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  Suze: it goes down. Some of these stocks that went down
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  Suze: dramatically this last week.
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  Suze: Hopefully you were smart enough to dollar cost average into them.
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  Suze: So, it's just something I really want you to do.
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  Suze: The next mistake that you make is that you are
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  Suze: an all or nothing investor. For some reason, you don't
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  Suze: feel like the concept of dollar cost averaging is something
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  Suze: that you can do. So you either do something with
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  Suze: all of your money.
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  Suze: Or you do absolutely nothing at all. The key to
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  Suze: successful investing is do something with small amounts of money
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  Suze: if you are afraid, but just keep doing it. So
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  Suze: you need to look at what you have, not at
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  Suze: what you had.
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  Suze: So don't look at stocks as to what they were.
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  Suze: Look at stocks to what they are. What are they
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  Suze: right now? What have you in your account so that
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  Suze: you can buy more?
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  Suze: Right? You have to dollar cost average. You can't be
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  Suze: an all or nothing investor.
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  Suze: And you cannot let fear rule your emotions.
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  Suze: Biggest mistake you will ever make if you look at
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  Suze: your portfolio or any of your stocks and you are afraid,
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  Suze: but yet you know that their good quality, good management,
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  Suze: everything is on its side, it just got obliterated.
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  Suze: For a while, go away and don't look, OK? 'Cause if
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  Suze: you come from a place of fear,
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  Suze: I promise you, you will make the biggest mistake of
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  Suze: your life. Now, I just want to tell you a
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  Suze: little bit of a Suze Story for a second, as
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  Suze: to where did I learn about fear.
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  Suze: And I learned about it when I was a stockbroker
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  Suze: at Merrill Lynch back in 1980, 1981, back then.
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  Suze: When you're a stockbroker, you have a book, meaning all
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  Suze: of your clients were your book. Each one had one
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  Suze: piece of paper in this book that showed me what
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  Suze: they bought, how much they bought at, when they sold,
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  Suze: or whatever it may be.
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  Suze: So I was very much in touch with what every
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  Suze: client I had was doing, cause I had to literally
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  Suze: make a physical entry to keep track of their buys
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  Suze: and their sells for them. This was the day before computers.
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  Suze: And I started to notice that I had a group
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  Suze: of people that always made money.
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  Suze: And then I had another group of people that always
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  Suze: lost money. And I wonder why that was because you
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  Suze: see back then, when you liked a stock, like XYZ stock,
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  Suze: you would call all your clients and tell them to
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  Suze: buy it, and let's say they would buy it at
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  Suze: $30 a share.
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  Suze: And undoubtedly sometimes the stocks would go straight up, but
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  Suze: a lot of times they would go from 30 down
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  Suze: to 25, maybe back up to 30, but a lot
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  Suze: of times after we purchased a stock it went down
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  Suze: at first.
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  Suze: So I decided to call all the clients because I
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  Suze: noticed that the clients that always lost money. When the
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  Suze: stock went from, let's say 30 to 25, they sold.
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  Suze: They would call me and say, just sell the stock.
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  Suze: All the clients that made money. I never heard from them.
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  Suze: They were fine that it went down.
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  Suze: So when I called them, I said to them, how
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  Suze: did you feel when I asked you to buy the
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  Suze: stock X Y Z?
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  Suze: And they said to me, I liked the idea. It
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  Suze: made sense, and I knew in the long run we
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  Suze: would make money. I said, So you felt secure about it.
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  Suze: You weren't afraid. And they said, Yeah. I said, OK,
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  Suze: just wondering. Then I called all the people who had
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  Suze: lost money and I asked them how did you feel
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  Suze: when I asked you to buy that stock.
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  Suze: And they said, well, truthfully, Suze, I was afraid. I
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  Suze: didn't really want to buy it. I, I was afraid.
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  Suze: And I said, well, why did you buy it then?
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  Suze: And they said, because you told us to, and we
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  Suze: thought it was a good idea, but still it just
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  Suze: didn't quite feel right.
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  Suze: And then I realized, oh my God, as I looked
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  Suze: at all the transaction of all the clients I had,
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  Suze: those that purchased things out of fear.
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  Suze: And then they were afraid, obviously even more when the
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  Suze: stock went down, those were the people that always lost money,
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  Suze: cause they were out of the stock when the stock
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  Suze: eventually came back.
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  Suze: Because once you sell, you don't go back in, you're out.
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  Suze: All the people that consistently made money, never sold because
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  Suze: they weren't afraid.
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  Suze: When they bought it, so do you understand that one
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  Suze: of the biggest mistakes you can make is when fear
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  Suze: rules your emotions in anything in your life.
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  Suze: So you have to be very clear in knowing why
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  Suze: you are investing in something.
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  Suze: And are you afraid? Like, do you even go into
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  Suze: that investment, and you're even afraid to go into that
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  Suze: investment to begin with. If you are, don't do it.
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  Suze: 'Cause I promise you, if you do it, when it
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  Suze: goes down, you will sell at a loss and then
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  Suze: it skyrockets back, but you're no longer in the stock.
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  Suze: So before you buy anything,
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  Suze: you have got to ask yourself the question, how do
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  Suze: you feel about what you're about to do if you
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  Suze: have doubts, if you have fear, just don't do it,
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  Suze: because once you do something, it's already done. There's time
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  Suze: to do things always, so you need to do something
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  Suze: from a place of strength, not from a place of fear.
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  Suze: Did that make sense to you? Now, I will say
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  Suze: that those four rules of the road when it comes
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  Suze: to investing, can honest to God turn your losses into gains,
• 17:36
  Suze: turn you into a much, much better investor.
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  Suze: A wiser investor, an investor that makes money versus an
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  Suze: investor that loses money.
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  Suze: In summary, you are to look at what you have,
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  Suze: not at what you had.
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  Suze: You are to always dollar cost average.
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  Suze: You are not to be an all or nothing investor.
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  Suze: You can try things out, but as long as you
• 18:11
  Suze: feel secure about it, just that simple, everybody, if you
• 18:17
  Suze: just put those rules in effect.
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  Suze: In the long run, over one year, over two, maybe
• 18:26
  Suze: over three, you will be very, very happy. Now, obviously
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  Suze: with all of those is the knowledge that what you're
• 18:35
  Suze: investing in is something that's needed, that has certain elements
• 18:42
  Suze: to it. It's something that everybody wants, so you just
• 18:46
  Suze: can't do those rules with stocks that are not good.
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  Suze: You do it with stocks that are.
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  Suze: And until KT joins us for another Ask KT and
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  Suze: Suze Anything, there's only one thing that I want you
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  Suze: to remember when it comes to your money, and it
• 19:04
  Suze: is this people first, then money, then things. Now you
• 19:09
  Suze: stay safe and healthy, and if you do, you will
• 19:13
  Suze: be unstoppable.