Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Good Financial News

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

The last few episodes have been pretty heavy, so how about some good financial news? Nicole shares three indications that the financial future is bright. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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money is working as hard as you do. So why overcomplicate your money? Keep it simple with Bank of America, your one-stop shop for everything you need today and the goals you're working toward tomorrow. To get started, visit bofa.com slash newprosmedia. That's b-o-f-a dot com slash n-e-w pros p-r-o-s media. bfa.com slash newprosmedia. Team Money Rehabbers, before we get into today's episode, I have a favor to ask you. I hate asking for anything, especially from you, but I need your help. We are on a mission to make the month of May a month of growth for the podcast. The data on the show's download numbers are super important. It's the golden metric that's used to measure the show's success and essentially keep the lights on.

So here's my ask. essentially keep the lights on. So here's my ask. Can you take two minutes today to ask one person, just one person in your network to subscribe to Money Rehab? There's a lot of flexibility here, guys. We only need one person. It could be your best friend. It could be a coworker, an enemy, the mail guy, your mom, anyone. And they can subscribe wherever they get their podcasts, Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify, Stitcher, truly anywhere. If all of our Money Rehab listeners get just one more person to listen, we would, of course, double our listenership. That is a really big goal, but that is how I roll. And pretty much it's unheard of for any podcast to do this, but also how I roll, why not just give it a try?

Now, to be real, I don't have any way to actually check if you do send the show to a friend or any prize to give you. This is really just me asking you personally if this show has been useful to you in any way to please do this for me so I can keep making this show for you. Thank you. Hey, guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player. GameStop. And should I have a 401k? No, I know. Oh, you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't.

Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. The last couple episodes of Money Rehab have been heavy. I'll be the first to admit it.

And listen, what we talk about on the show is a reflection of what's going on in the world. And the world is not sunshine and rainbows all the time. If my episodes were just butterflies and unicorns all the time, it wouldn't be helpful to you as you're trying to navigate the un-butterfly-y and un-unicorn things that are happening in the world. But because the last few episodes have been focused on difficult topics, I did want to shine some light on the good things that are also going on. It's a reminder that I needed, so I figured you might need it too. Here are some highlights. Number one. student loan borrowers have more time to breathe because the student loan moratorium was extended once again. Think about it. At this time last

month, you probably thought that you would need to be making student loan payments by May 1st. Well, we're a week and change into May, and guess what? No one is shaking you down for student loan payments. The new expiration date for the moratorium is August 31st. And even though if I were paying off student loans right now, I'd probably still be chipping away at them, some people have speculated that there may be some more good news coming around student loans because of the way that new deadline is falling right around midterm elections. that new deadline is falling right around midterm elections. Politico noted that a range of Democrats pushed the Biden administration to extend the pause on payments through at least the end of 2022, which would be long enough to avoid requiring borrowers to make payments just before the

midterms. Just last week, nearly 100 lawmakers sent a letter to Biden asking him to extend the pause until at least the end of the year. It's something, of course, we will be watching very closely. Number two, fighting back against inflation. This year, inflation has been the silent financial killer that has cut holes into our pockets. Prices are higher and we're certainly all feeling it. But the Federal Reserve, aka the Fed, is getting serious about curbing inflation. Last week, the Fed announced a half percentage point interest rate hike. As we've talked about in past episodes, and we will certainly talk about more in future episodes, a tactic the government uses to curb inflation is to raise interest rates and therefore making it difficult

for people to borrow money. The Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said this, quote, inflation is too high and we understand the hardship it is causing and we are moving expeditiously to bring it back down, end quote. NPR reported that the Fed is considering two additional half-point rate increases at their next two meetings in June and July, but that the Fed is considering two additional half-point rate increases at their next two meetings in June and July, but that the Fed is not considering rate hikes larger than half a percentage point at a time. And investors loved hearing that, as shown by the next piece of good news. Number three. The stock market had a great day. On Wednesday of last week, the stock market had its best day in two years. The Dow closed 932 points higher, which is almost 3%, and the S&P 500 was also up

by 3%. This added to the best stock market performance since May 18th of 2020. Why the big jump? Most experts are pointing to the fact that the Fed announced it wasn't considering a 75 basis point increase. And as you know, that's 0.75. And that made investors very happy and therefore the stock market very happy as well. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. I know I have long been preaching that the key to investing success is to not get off the roller coaster in the middle of the ride and sticking with your investments even when the market is down. I know we have had some rough market days recently and honestly, probably have more in the near future. But I do hope that this market rebound helps show you that the market is resilient. And so we should continue to play that long game. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are

Morgan Lavoie and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Boy and Mike Coscarelli. Executive producers are Nikki Etor and Will Pearson. Our mascots are Penny and Mimsy. Huge thanks to OG Money Rehab team Michelle Lanz for her development work, Catherine Law for her production and writing magic, and Brandon Dickert for his editing, engineering, and sound design. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.