Rich Habits Podcast - 121: Why Americans Are Losing Trust in the Stock Market w/ Caleb Silver

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

In this week's episode of the Rich Habits Podcast, we're joined by Investopedia's Editor in Chief Caleb Silver! After starting his career at Bloomberg during the Dot Com Bubble, he became the Executive Producer at CNN Money and then the company's Director of Business News. Today, he's the Editor in Chief at Investopedia -- the world's largest personal finance and investing education platform. Click here to check out Caleb Silver's Instagram, X, and Investopedia's Instagram, X, and Investopedia Express podcast!Major shoutout to Caleb for joining us! We hope the first-hand data he presented during the episode was insightful. ---👀 Sign up for the ⁠⁠Rich Habits Newsletter⁠⁠ and join 52K+ like minded investors in receiving weekly market updates, ⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠---🏠 Download the Rich Habits Real Estate Hacks, click here!---🔥 Trial the ⁠⁠Rich Habits Network⁠⁠ for 7 days completely for free and see why 650+ other podcast listeners love the community we've built, ⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠---💰 Sign up for ⁠⁠Public⁠⁠ and take advantage of their up to $10,000 bonus when you transfer an existing portfolio to their platform, ⁠⁠click here!⁠⁠---⭐ Download our FREE Financial Planner –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Download our FREE Budgeting Template –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Earn 4.1% on your savings with a High-Yield Cash Account –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Trade stocks, options, music royalties and crypto on Public –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Automatically buy stock where you shop with Grifin –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Protect your family with term life insurance from Suriance –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⭐ Use code “Spotify” for 15% off our 4-module video course –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠---👤 Explore everything Austin does –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👤 Explore everything Robert does –⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠❓ Ask us questions for our Q&A episodes – @richhabitspodcast on Instagram📬 Inquire about working together – [e-mail]---Disclosure: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 6/9/25, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fee Schedule⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more.Hankwitz Group LLC has an existing business relationship with NEOS Investment Management LLC. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and the author owns several NEOS ETFs.

Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify, brought to you by public.com. My name is Austin Hankwitz, and I'm joined by my co-host, Robert Croke. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur in his 50s with lifetime revenues of over 300 million, and I'm an entrepreneur in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. Since quitting my full-time job in corporate finance a few years ago, I've built a seven-figure media business and actively advise some of the most well-known fintech companies around the world. show name might suggest every episode. We talk about rich habits as they relate to business, finance, and mindset. However, we try and bring you two unique perspectives, one from an industry

veteran, which is Robert, and the other myself, someone who's still in the process of building wealth and figuring it all out. Robert, what are we going to be talking about in today's episode? This is an exciting episode this week of the Rich Habits podcast because we're joined by Caleb Silver. He's the editor-in-chief of the largest investor education platform in the world Investopedia, I'm sure you've heard of it. He's also the host of Investopedia Express podcast, which is an incredible, incredible show. And we invited Caleb on to the show, not only because he's a thought leader in the investing space, but because he has a very unique perspective to share as it relates to what retail investors are searching for on Investopedia, how they're

responding to headline news and what actions they're actually taking. That's right. This interview is all about getting an inside look onto the markets from the largest investing news and resources platform in the world, Investopedia. Caleb, we are so excited you are here, my friend. Where are you right now, by the way? Give our audience a little insight peek as to what's going on behind the scenes. Yeah, well, thanks for having me. First of all, I'm a huge fan of the podcast.

I'm a huge fan and follower of both of you. I am at the Reagan National Library in Seamy Valley, Reagan Economic Forum, the first of its kind. There's some big thought leaders here, some big heavy hitters like Jamie Diamonds here. We've got some senators here. We've got heads of some of the biggest committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives, all here talking about the future of the economy and economic policy in America. But I think they're using the platform of Reagan, who kind of really changed the course of the

American economy when he took over as president in 1981 as a launching pad for these conversations. So I'm delighted to be here. You got CNBC over my left shoulder here, Fox business over to my right. The big media heavy hitters are here. For some reason, they invited me to. So that's where I'm speaking to you from Simi Valley, California. Great to be here. How exciting.

How exciting. Well, not only are you there, but you're also on the show right now. So let's give the audience a 30-second intro as to who Caleb Silver is and what you've been working on for last couple years in Investpedia. Well, I'm an art major, former restaurant cook turned business journalist, also a documentarian, but I've been in business journalism for 30 years. I did start my career in the restaurant business, but I then became a cameraman, a videographer, started my own production company. Eventually found my way into business news at Bloomberg in the late 90s as the internet bubble was formed. I went from Bloomberg over to CNN, ran the business news desk, ran all the business news at CNN for a while, and then I've been at Investopedia for nine and a half years. Now, thought I'd be there for a few minutes.

Turns out this has been a great place to be. It's an honor to be the editor and chief of Investopedia because I have been using it my whole career, basically. We're 25 years old as a website. So to be able to be the editor-in-chief and represent the brand is a real honor for me. And I'm delighted to be here and to share what we hear and feel from our readers and investors all the time with you guys. 100% man, super excited to dig into things. And just to make sure we're on the same page, for those of you who might not have heard of Investopedia, which is like crazy if you haven't heard of it yet, it is quite literally the encyclopedia for investing. You can type in any term, any word, any names, it relates to finance, investing, the economy, anything. And then you

just put the word investopedia after it. And Google will pop up with the Investopedia landing page. with all the information. They got how-to videos. They've got news. Literally, all of it's there. So I've been using Investopedia since I was actually a freshman in college studying finance, trying to figure out the little terms and things for the test and study and things like that.

So big fan of Investopedia. Highly recommend everyone to give it a shot. Now, Caleb, you have brought a lot of data and analytics with you today as it relates to the average investor. So let's kick things off with this chart that is on screen right now. Dividing up investor optimism versus investor pestivism. can you walk us through what's going on here and what's happening behind the scenes that supports this data so i'm seeing on my screen right now 34% of respondents are cautiously optimistic at the

moment with the second largest respondent being here skeptical at 23% and then the third is hesitant what's going on and why are people so skeptical at investipedia we have a lot of people coming to us searching for answers to questions that's one way we track their sentiment we have a finger on the pulse of what they're searching for because when people are fearful or opportunistic, they try to get educated and then take action. That big use case for Investopedia. But we also have this massive reader base of our daily newsletters, about a million and a half newsletter subscribers. So every two months, since the pandemic, we've been sending them this six-minute survey. How are you feeling? Optimistic, pessimistic. What are you afraid of? What are you opportunistic about? What are you buying?

What are you selling? What would you do if you had an extra $10,000? The ultimate discretionary investing question. So we want to know directly how they feel. And they respond to us. It's a loyal audience, and we've been doing this every two months. So in the last few months, as you can imagine, during the tariff turmoil, we've had a lot of cautiousness, right, a lot of skepticism based on the two and fro of policy, right? The back and forth, or we don't know where we stand as it relates to tariff, what's going to happen to the American economy. So people get very fearful in times of uncertainty.

Uncertainies like kryptonite for investors. We can't really move. We don't really want to move when we can't see the future. And I think that's the sentiment among retail investors. That said, even though they may be cautiously optimistic and a lot more of them are skeptical, that fear has eased a little bit as we've had a little reduction in the tariff talks a little bit as well. But they haven't done that much with their portfolios. And that's what I find really interesting.

People say one thing. They may be fearful and scared. They don't necessarily take action. Some people do. Some people do on the extreme. Some people go right into the fire and try to short stocks or buy options or buy inverse ETFs or try to ride an interesting, promiscuous wave there. Other people get really guarded, and I think it's about age, where you are in your investing

journey. So people tell us how they're feeling. The emoji meter is just a cute way of representing that. And people are as cautious as pretty much they've been in the past 12 months, a little bit more cautious two months ago, but still cautious and still reticent, but not necessarily changing their behavior. I read something interesting this morning that kind of really illustrates and goes along with this chart, and that is that markets have an erosion of confidence, not a change.

in spending. And it's really interesting because that really fits alongside this chart because I don't see a difference and most people don't see a difference, but the confidence difference is definitely heightened right now and has been for months. So that leads us into this next chart, which I find super interesting. When you asked your most active, educated users on Investopedia, what stock would you buy if you had to hold it for 10 years? This was their answer. Walk our audience through this and why you think so many people chose these specific names. Most of them, to me, were pretty apparent. Austin and I were like, this is a great chart, but there were a few surprises on this one. So walk us through what you think about these names, what they chose,

and give us an idea of how many people this list was built on. What sample size was this built on? Yeah, we usually get a couple of thousand respondents to our survey every couple of months. So that's a pretty good handle. And we know that people that read Investipedia are 18 to there are throughout various stages of their investing journey. So when you look at the top stocks, a lot of them look like the top of the S&P 500. It looked like a lot of S&P 500 index funds. You got your Microsofts. You got your Amazon.

You got your apples, of course. But then you can feel it with an older cohort. You got an Exxon mobile there. We feel like that's an older investor. They love the dividends. They've been investing in the oil and gas space for a while. I think we see a Berkshire Hathaway on there somewhere as well. Palantir, that's obviously a stock that's come on in the past five to 10 years.

Been a very hot stock. but I think that's a younger, newer investor. And then you have, you know, the vanilla stocks that people just like to hold in good times and bad, the Walmarts and the Costco's of the world. Those are super dependable. They've delivered excellent returns for investors. They also pay nice dividends. But you can see here the balance between who's sort of in the younger part of their investing journey

and believes in the companies that are transforming the future and who is still tied to the companies that have sort of brought them here along a 30 or 40-year investing journey. It's always fascinating to see what they would buy and hold. And we also ask them, what are you holding right now or what do you been buying or what are you been adding to? That looks just like the NASDAQ 100 or the top of the S&P 500. So individual investors, you know, we like to think that we're diversified. We actually run in packs. We run in herds and we grab it towards big stocks and the safe stocks that sort of brought us to the party. Very reluctant to move away from that strategy.

Isn't that so funny, though, to think about because to your point, you know, we're a big, big believers and people should be investing the vast majority of their portfolio. into these low-cost index funds and ETFs that tend to go up into the right over a long period of time. So think the S&P 500, the NASDAQ, things of that nature, you know, after you've built your base, after you've got $100,000 invested across all your accounts and into these ETFs and index funds, we encourage people to think about diversification. If that's different asset classes or single stocks that might be part of uncorrelated sectors of the markets, things of that nature, it's so funny to see how despite, you know, encouraging people to diversify, really just double down, right? They got the big Microsofts, the big NVIDias, the big Palantiers,

the Teslas, the apples, the Walmarts, the Amazon's. I will say one name on here that really surprised me, and I'd never heard of it, was Enterprise Products Partners. I'd never heard of that company, EPD, I believe, is their ticker, though. I was looking at this and I was like, what the heck is that? So I thought that was pretty funny. Yeah, that was an unusual one. We haven't seen that pop in in this survey, I think ever, maybe that's somebody jumping on the quantum AI space or thinking that it's another ticker. There's a lot of people that confuse tickers sometimes too, but people listed this one as well. You can tell who's sort of been in this for a while and who's sort of new to it and discovering new stocks on their own. And we do have very active traders who read Investipedia. We have a

big options, sort of learning environment, but we also have a stock simulator. There you can use options on that and a crypto simulator too. So we're always asking people as well, what about crypto? Have you been adding more Bitcoin to your or Bitcoin related spot ETFs to your portfolio, how willing are you to take risks with new asset products, private capital, private credit? And the most part, retail investors are not that ready to take that type of risk with our portfolio, even though it's part of a diversified investing strategy. I think when you say diversification to a lot of retail investors who don't have a lot of experience, that means they're going to buy two shares of 60 stocks. You know, that doesn't necessarily work unless you hit the right

one with the right amount of money. You've got to kind of have maybe like 10, 12 stocks that you actually build positions in over time and diversification. We're talking about various asset classes that can help mitigate the ups and downs and what goes on inside a portfolio. So it's so fascinating. And the fact is that not only do we get this reading from them by asking them, sending out the survey, but we actually see what they're buying and selling and see what strategies they're pursuing as well. And we look at data across the industry. And, you know, there's this thing in investing, especially with individual investors like us called the Relentless Bid. We do the same thing every two, weeks. We get our paycheck. We go put our money into our 401ks. We've made our allocations. We're

very loath to make changes. And that's what you usually see month after month in our surveys and also in our in our traffic to our website. Yeah, one of the most important messages out of this chart and this portion of the show for me is Austin and I for years now have been speaking diversification, build your base, diversify, but also keep it simple. We always try to get people to work and act like investors, long-term investors versus game. And it's something Caleb we speak on all the time. And I feel that the people that get too fancier and always chasing the shiny ball syndrome are gamblers and not long-term investors. So I really appreciate seeing the information on this specific chart because it really does show a picture that people do keep it pretty simple.

And as long as they keep it under that format and they don't get too fancy, I think it's a better way to build wealth than chasing every new lead and every new stock. And people can do that with a very small portion of their portfolio, the fun portfolio, the brokerage account, the crypto account. If you want to have some fun, do it with a very small percentage so you don't blow yourself up. But, you know, it's a marathon investing and it's a lifelong marathon. So it's about staying in the race, not blowing yourself up over a couple of trades because you heard a crazy idea or your friend told you to do something. Or you got FOMO because you're watching people, you know, make money in ways that you don't understand. I just came from Las Vegas, the Bitcoin 2025 conference. Funny enough, it was in Las Vegas at a casino.

Of course. And right downstairs is, you know, the biggest crypto event in the world where it's not necessarily gambling, but there's still a lot of price arbitrage that you can see investors trying to take advantage of in a new space that doesn't have a lot of safeguards yet. Before we ask Caleb, our next question, if you want to go and invest in any of those cool companies that you just saw on your screen, there's an online brokerage platform that we recommend. It's called public.com. On public, you can invest in almost anything, stocks, bonds, crypto options, and more. And if you're like us and you keep an emergency fund, you can take

advantage of their 4.1% APY offered by their high-yield cash account. Discover why NerdWallet gave public five stars for its ease of use and investment selection. Fund your account in five minutes or less and earn up to $10,000 when you transfer your investments over to public. And for a limited time, public is offering a 1% match on all IR. contributions. So if you're finally investing towards a Roth IRA this year, do it on public and get that free 1% match on all contributions. Paid for by public investing, full disclosures in the podcast description. All right, let's now jump back to our interview with Caleb. Now, speaking of not blowing up your portfolio, this next chart that's on the screen right now

is kind of an extension of that. When you all asked your correspondence, if you had an extra $10,000 to invest, where would you invest it? 25%, which is the vast majority here of people, said that they would park that money into either a money market fund, a CD, or a high yield savings account. Now, as you know, we always want to encourage our listeners to make sure their money is working as hard for them as they work to earn it. And sometimes parking it in cash or CDs or money market funds isn't a good long-term strategy to do that, right? earning three and a half to four percent on something versus the long-term average of the S&Ps, 8, 10, 12 percent is very different. So why do you think so many Investopedia users responded the way they did here? I think it was the fear trade. It was the tariff uncertainty.

And we're still in a period of great uncertainty. So if they were going to put extra money to work, where would they put it? And I think some of that is I want to make sure my own personal financial situation is set. My foundation is strong in case we go into a recession. Recession has been one of the most spiked terms lately. There's been a lot of traffic behind the term recession because people are seeing what's going on in the economy and they're seeing mixed signals, but they also maybe saw that big dip in GDP for the first quarter

from the fourth quarter of last year. So they're worrying about that, and they're thinking maybe 4% sounds pretty good right now if I had that extra money just in case the bottom falls out. So this changes obviously is headlines change. So usually it's individual stocks. Most of our readers are active investors. a lot of them are self-directed and they like putting money to work and you can see their favorite

stocks they love these stocks so when they say something other than individual stocks whether it's ETFs for a broader diversified perspective or it's money markets high-ield savings and CDs you know they're a little bit more cautious a little bit more fearful but this question though is interesting because it's what would you do with an extra $10,000 that's a discretionary question not what are you doing with your money right now what am I doing my money right now the same thing I do every two weeks But if I had extra money, I probably put it somewhere safe just in case. And I think that's the mindset of consumers and investors right now as we go through this great period of uncertainty.

Yeah, I look at this chart and I feel like it's flip-flopped. You know, because when you're thinking of extra, then I would look at it that that would be something you could take a little more risk with. But actually, the audience went the opposite direction. They went more safe. Because when I look at the bottom of the chart, real estate, cryptocurrency, gold, only making up 10% of this chart, that's really sharp. shocking to me, and that leads me to believe that the older audience is really looking for safe havens

more so to really sit in cash and earn these smaller amounts than they are with having any risk. That really is a great chart for me and really opens my eyes up that I need to think differently as far as these audiences, because this is great, great information for everyone watching this podcast right now to understand the sentiment of the rest of the market, not just what Austin and I state, but what people generally think because Caleb, one of the things we say all the time that I think is really magical for our audience is personal finance is personal. We live in an era right now where everyone is kind of playing follow the leader. We live in a very comparison-based lifestyle through social media. So most people just don't know how to think clearly on their own and make decisions on their own for what is best for their situation.

So I love this data. This is really, really strong. And to your point, Robert, I think that during. a lot of this policy uncertainty and economic uncertainty, we've seen a lot of traffic to things like what happens if Social Security gets privatized? What happens to my 401k if we go into a recession? Is it too late to move money into a backdoor Roth IRA? You can feel older investors thinking about playing defense right now, much more defense than I'm used to seeing. And younger investors thinking, is this still the best possible path, right? Index investing, buying stocks every two weeks,

Are we going to get the type of returns that we've seen over the last 20 years or so? And the fact that yields have been high. This is the flip side of high interest rates means there has been an alternative. So if savers have done okay over the past few years, even though the stock market's been great, you've had high yields too. So for the older investor or the saver that wants to make sure that the foundation is strong, they've had an alternative, which is why you see continued interest in these savings products. The one thing that I think is crazy about this chart,

and it goes to show just like how early sometimes we can be. But I'm only seeing if people had an extra 10,000, right? Only 3% of them would put it into cryptocurrency slash Bitcoin. Or only 7% of them would put it into gold. Gold has gone parabolic over the last 12 to 18 months, right? This thing has gone up 100%. Bitcoin has done a very similar fashion. But people are so risk off right now as it relates to those asset classes.

And so it's just so interesting to me because when I look at these prices and when I look to something go up a hole, I'm like, oh, man, I don't want to buy that. It looks like it's gone off the rails. I feel like I'll be buying the top and things of that nature, right? But on the flip side, maybe it seems like people, it's just not even on their radars. Maybe this could just be the beginning for the adoption of some of these different asset classes over time. So it's just, it's really interesting to see this like firsthand data from a large data set of people. I feel that the crypto portion of this with this extra $10,000 is so small, yet very meaningful because of the fact that even as people are risk off,

it really brings back something that I believe Warren Buffett said when he was at. asked about his strategies of how to get rich. And he said the reason that nobody copies his style is no one wants to get rich slow. And I think that's really important because so many of the younger audience that Austin and I speak to, even they, when we talk about index funds and some of these slower processes that are more assured to bring wealth over time, they really want to go on the fast track. They want to yolo their money into some of these meme coins and crazy stocks and penny stocks and all that. And I think that is why, you know, you find this imbalance between long-term investors and people that are yelowing their money. And so it's just really interesting when we see

data like this. And I really appreciate you sharing this with our audience today because it just gives us a better insight as to what is really going on in the minds of investors like you said from 18 to 80 years old. So I really appreciate it. Now, I will respect the fact that I see here in the notes of the data that this was a survey conducted on May 9 through May 13 of 2025. So if I rewind a little bit in our brains, right, tariff tantrum was still very much happening. Headline news was all over the place. I don't think the China deal went, you know, was struck yet. So it was definitely a lot of uncertainty in the markets, but it's still pretty interesting

to me to reflect upon the data here. This captured the very end of this captured the Sunday and the Monday of the 90-day tariff troops between the U.S. and China. So it captured some of that, but still I think people are not convinced. One really interesting question we've been asking for really since January, since the inauguration is, has your trust in the capital markets eroded under this administration? Do you trust this administration to safeguard the capital markets to protect your investments? So the question is not, do you think the market will go up or down under that?

Under them, we ask that as well. I mean, that's pretty split, as you can imagine, just like the rest of the country. But do you trust the administration? Do you trust where your money is? And that mistrust, lack of trust has been rising, close to around 50 percent the last few months. I find that interesting and a little bit terrifying because, as you know, this whole thing is based on trust. This is all based on the fact that if I continue to invest, if I do the right thing, I'll return, you know, 8 to 10, 8 to 12% a year. If I stay diversified, I'll protect my investments.

If I keep my money in the bank, it'll be safe. I think that lack of trust is very interesting and pretty terrifying. And then when you see what's going on in terms of the crypto movement and the involvement of this administration, the broadening out of cryptocurrency and the widening of it, now the 401Ks, maybe accepting Bitcoin anytime soon. All of that is happening at a really interesting time as our entire economy has been transformed just in the last six months. Let's talk through it.

Nearly half of all respondents stated they trust the U.S. stock market less now that Trump is in office. What is your perspective here? And why do you think that is? Is it because he broke everything so quickly and everyone was fearful that he wouldn't be able to put it back together or that he didn't have a. reason to break the economy and the stock market to be able to hopefully make the U.S. safer and stronger again and bolster the U.S. dollar?

All of the above. And I think that the recklessness and how quickly the stock market sold off, the S&P 500 fell, you know, 19% almost into a bare market so quickly. And the lack of sort of empathy when asked about it, I think made people back off and say, well, maybe he doesn't care about this. Maybe what he cares about is the Trump coin or the decline of the dollar or, you know, or the big sell-off in the bond market. So which one of these alarms was going to finally wake up the administration and say,

well, you may have taken this a little too far. It wasn't the stock market this time. Back during the first Trump administration, it definitely was. The stock market was definitely a barometer. It was definitely a, you know, there were guide rails there. This time, definitely not. So was it the spike in treasury yields because investors around the world, big governments, big institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds,

didn't want to buy our bonds anymore? or it was the big sell-off in the dollar that made the administration say, maybe we need to ease off the tariff talk a little bit. So it was one of those things. But the fact that it happened so quickly and there was no empathy towards the stock market. You know, maybe we, I think the president would say, maybe we'll go through a little bit of a bumpy period here. I'm not worried about the stock market.

That shocked people. They were not used to hearing that, especially from him. But I think now they realize what he and his administration are all about. And the fact that there wasn't a lot of coherence or clarity and really there still isn't about how we will train. transform the American economy to make it work for everybody. So we do more manufacturing here. We pay fair wages. Corporate profit margins are still allowed to grow in an environment like that. We haven't really seen a complete strategy. We know the broad picture, right? Tariffs, right?

An extension of the tax cuts and deregulation. Okay. But we don't know the details. And without details, you don't have clarity. Without clarity, you get scared. And when you get scared, you lose trust. I think that's what we're saying. I think that's a wonderful breakdown, Caleb. So here's my perspective, which this is like such great data. So essentially you're saying half the people that responded to this question of do you trust the markets more or do you trust the markets less now that Trump is in office? And half of them said, I trust it less now. I wish that there was more literacy as to what causes the stock market to trend higher over a long period of time, which is earnings per share growth, free cash flow growth, dividend growth, guidance, all those things. Because at

its core, I think American capitalism will continue to propel us further over the next five, 10, 15 years, especially turbocharged by artificial intelligence and machine learning and autonomy and everything that's happening right now with AI. And I think a lot of people mistakenly, and I made this mistake too, thought that who was in the White House mattered more than what was happening in my own house. I used to always, oh man, this president, if this guy's president, I'll never be able to make money. If this person's president, I'll never be able to, you know, know, retire a millionaire. My money's all going to go away. Oh, I'll never be able to get that. It's like the biggest piece of advice I love to share with people is don't worry about the White House,

worry about your personal finances, worry about your side hustles, your investments, your discipline, your habits, your rich habits, everything that you are doing. Because whoever's in the White House, if it was Joe Biden, Donald Trump, whoever's going on behind the scenes there, none of that matters. They're not going to like tell you to get out of bed and go get that new job that you've always dreamt of. They're not going to remind you to invest in the S&P 500, right? You've got to do those things. As we think about trusting the markets more or less, like, I think what's really important to understand is that financial literacy as to what drives the markets higher no matter who is in office. Amen to that. Amen to that. And one of the most popular questions on Investipedia is

which president had the best returns while they were in office. And the fact is, you know, most people get it wrong. It was Clinton because there was an internet boom. Just to your very point. It's the growth of profit margins. It's the evolution of new technologies that transform our economy, that drive corporate margins higher. That's what moves the stock market. And when you weigh it out, Democrats or Republicans, it's like 11 percent or 11.3 percent. It's pretty much flat.

Maybe if they have the wind in their sales because they control both houses, maybe their returns are a little bit better per party. But as an investor, the best thing you could hope for is some gridlock. But invest as if it's your own future. Be the CFO of your own life. Don't worry about who's in the Oval Office. But it's the media's fault and, you know, guilty as charged because often we say, the stock market went up or down today because President Biden did this or President Trump did that or, you know,

we're always trying to look for a story, a narrative. But your narrative as an individual investor, as the CFO of your own life is, stay the course, have a plan and make sure that you're making decisions to protect your wealth and build it over time. I want to talk on this just for a little bit longer. And everyone listening, please, please, please. I hope you're really digesting this. This is so, so incredibly important. I have seen it for decades now, friends of mine, investor friends of mine, where they get so bent out of shape emotionally based on who's sitting in that chair in the White House.

It does not matter. If you're a good long-term investor and you understand what you're doing and investing correctly and you're diversified, the president is not going to matter. I love what you guys just stated. Worry about your own house, not the White House. It's so important. And then two other things, Caleb, that are important parts of kind of Austin and I's modus operandi is getting people to not have knee-jerk reactions to every single headline they see because I think that hurts most people's ability to build wealth because they're always trying to time the

market getting in and getting out because of the fear of these headlines. And then the second part of that is when in doubt zoom out. That is probably one of the number one things we've been saying for years is to get our audience to not look at the five-day chart or the weekly chart or a month. chart. If they're uncertain about a stock or something, just zoom out to one year, three years, or five years, and it'll really tell the story of what the stock market does over the long term. So I love this conversation. And I think this is going to be an incredible episode to really calm the nerves of so many people because, Caleb, you brought the heat, you brought the

statistics, you brought the data. And that is really important to help our audience understand where we are as a country relative to all the song and dance with the president, but what it really means for our money moving forward in 2025. Thank you so much for allowing me to share this data with you. And it is really important. I was just at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting. Warren Buffett was asked this question. He's all of 94 years young. And he said, hey, it's a new administration. They're changing policy. We always go through this and that things eventually work out. So I know right now is bumpy, but over the long term, it doesn't matter. If it's good enough for Warren Buffett, it's good enough for me.

Hey, listen, same here. If it's good enough for Warren, it's good for me. Now, before we ask Caleb, our final question, let's take a moment to hear from this episode sponsor, Nios Investments. Nios offers ETFs that seek high levels of monthly income with a key focus on tax efficiency while providing core portfolio exposure across equities, fixed income, real estate, cryptocurrency, and cash alternatives like T-bills. Their ETFs may be especially interesting for folks looking to generate tax-efficient,

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this and other important information, please visit neosfunds.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before you invest. An investment in Nios ETFs involves risk and possible loss of principle. There is no guarantee that Nios ETFs will make monthly distributions and the amounts may fluctuate from month to month. Cryptocurrency is relatively new and the market has its own specific risks. Nios ETSs are distributed by Foreside Fund Services LLC. All right, let's now jump back to our interview with Caleb. Now before we wrap up the same, interview, Caleb. You said something at the Grit Money Summit. We pinged you in via a Zoom call. And you said something during that. You were asked, I think everyone on this panel at the time was asked,

like something they'd want to invest in for a long period of time. Or what would you invest in right now? I don't remember the specific question, but it was about like investing in something you're really excited about. And you said water. You said water. You want to invest in water. Can you explain that to our audience and really to me? Because I didn't really understand why you said that. What is, what's going on with water? Well, I'm right here. And, Southern California, and it's pretty dry. I think water is going to be one of those precious assets. It already is, those precious resources.

That's ultimately going to be more and more privatized as we have more and more droughts. I think climate change is a real thing that is impacting the economy. I think it's the big bogey in the economy. If you want to worry about something, don't worry about the Oval Office, except what's happening in terms of climate science, because I think climate is the big bogey here. I don't think it is climate disaster is priced well enough into economic models, into disaster models, into insurance models,

certainly not into real estate models. And I think water is a big source of that. I grew up in New Mexico, pretty dry state. I know how precious it is. And just being here in Southern California and flying even here from Nevada, you can see just, you know, how that big lake outside of Las Vegas is shrunk. So I think it's going to come a more and more precious resource. And of the precious resources that we actually need, you know, to get by,

it's not necessarily the cobalt or, you know, the stuff that makes in my iPhone. It's actually what we need to drink and sustain ourselves. So I also believe it's becoming a more privatized industry, and it's one of those things that, again, it's a precious resource, probably the most precious we have. That's why I think it might be something that, you know, might be worth investing in at least a small portion of your portfolio. I think resources in general are important. That's just the one that is so basic and so important to the way we live. That's a great response. I appreciate you sharing that, Caleb. Yeah, definitely. Caleb, thank you for joining us. This was such a great conversation. We appreciate you taking your time. You're going into this incredible event today. Yet you took the time out for the Rich Habits podcast. We couldn't be more excited to have you. And this was a great, great interview and episode.

So we appreciate you joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I'm a big fan, folks. These people have been sharing the truth and are great educator. So it's just an honor to be on the platform with you as well, to be on the show. Thanks so much for having me. And for everyone that wants to keep tabs on Caleb Silver, how do they do that? I am easy to find.

I'm at Caleb Silver across all the socials. We are at Investipedia across all the socials. The Investipedia Express podcast every Monday now. So tune into that across all podcast platforms. And then our news team does a great job at Investopedia. Our whole editorial team does. And we have a free news section for the educated investor. No paywalls.

Just come, get smart. Have as much as you want. I love it. We'll have all that fun stuff linked out in the show notes below for everyone to easily find. And as always, Caleb, thank you so much, my friend. Thanks for having me. Shout out to Caleb. What a cool interview.

I mean, this guy, he started at Bloomberg. He was doing CNN money in like their business segment. And now he's been at Investopedia for the last nine and a half years and is now their editor-in-chief. And this guy, I mean, he's got the Investopedia Express podcast. He's always at these cool events. I mean, we literally pulled him away from conversations with Jamie Diamond and all these other awesome people to talk with us on our show. Like this guy has got it going on. And I'm super excited.

We were finally able to get him on the show. And more importantly, share some of this awesome data with our audience. Yeah, I think that was the coolest part of the conversation for me is having someone like Caleb come on to the show that has this inside track of all the data, what is actually going on in the markets from a data set perspective. So that was the really cool part. Having those charts, even enlighten me and we do this every single day. So I thought it was an incredible conversation. And he was very, very in tune with all the things that we're interested in bringing to our audience. So awesome interview.

And I just think this is a great episode. And if you are one of those people that responded that you want to take an extra $10,000 and put it into a high-yield savings account, assuming you already have your emergency fund built up and you are very well protected between, you know, you and life, go put that money to work. You don't need to be sitting on so much cash. And don't forget, too, capitalism works in the sense that corporate profits go up, therefore the stock market goes up.

Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, it doesn't matter who's in office. What matters is the daily habits. the daily rich habits that you are taking on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual basis that's going to propel you closer and closer to financial independence and retiring with dignity. We take pride in this podcast by sitting down with you, looking you in the eyes, and telling you what to do step by step so you are moving in the right direction with your money, despite your political affiliation. We don't care about politics here. We care about making money. That is right. We only care about giving you the best information, guidance and strategies that we can,

every single week to help you make educated decisions because, as we always say, personal finance is personal. And we appreciate all of you and the support you provide us each and every week in this podcast. And if we provide a ton of value for you, always remember, give us that five-star review, share it with a friend. There might be someone out there that's struggling a little bit and get them into the Rich Habits Network and get them watching the show. Thanks, everyone for tuning in to this week's episode of the Rich Habits podcast. There's a ton of free resources in the show notes below as it relates to investipedia.

Our own newsletter, the Rich Habits Network, like Robert alluded to, we're still running a seven-day free trial over there and everything else that we've got cooking behind the scenes. So thank you so much for joining us and we'll see. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair.

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