Together with Betterment

Happy Thursday,

Check out our two reminders for you below, and then read on for the best newsletter of the week!

A quick breakdown — in case you don’t have the time.

1. ⭐ Trial the Rich Habits Network for FREE for 7 Days (seriously)!

2. ⭐ Tariffs are changing everything.

3. ⭐ We sat down with the man that turned $20K into $60M.

4. ⭐ Diversification across asset classes can really pay off.

5. ⭐ The S&P 500 tends to perform well after the VIX spikes above 45.

6. ⭐ Nvidia forecasted a -$5.5B loss due to banned AI chip sales to China

Market Overview

Chart of the Week

Tariffs are changing everything.

According to the Richmond Fed Bank, the above chart shows the average effective tariff rate across different industries. This means that hundreds of thousands of companies are having a difficult time forecasting future earnings, pricing their goods, and adjusting their supply chains on the fly.

These average rates are based on if the tariffs hold firm. According to World Bank data, the United States would have the highest tariff rate in the world (by a LARGE margin) if these numbers were to remain in place:

With earnings season upon us, it’s never been more important to tune into your favorite company’s earnings call. As investors, we should always be trying our best to stay up-to-date on these quarterly reports. As a quick reminder, the easiest way to tune in is by Google Searching “[Company Name] Investor Relations” then clicking the first link.

Once on their IR website, you’ll be able to see more about their quarterly earnings reports, investor presentations, and other press releases. Specifically listen for the company’s “forward guidance.” In short, this is the company’s operational expectations for the coming years. Analysts are curious to see if companies will provide no guidance or numerous “guidance situations” given the difficulty of projecting data through different tariff situations.

To wrap things up — tariffs must be the Chart of the Week because everything is riding on them. If we saw a series of deals made with China and other large trading partners tomorrow, the market would probably soar. If we continue down the current path, more downside feels inevitable.

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In Case You Missed It…

👉 Episode 113: The Man That Turned $20K into $60M 

In this week’s Monday-morning episode of the Rich Habits Podcast (linked here) — Austin and Robert sat down with legendary investor Chris Camillo.

Here’s what they talked about:

1. Social Arbitrage Investing — Chris pioneered the “social arbitrage” investing strategy when he was in college making trades via pay phones between class. When Chris notices a discrepancy between a real-world event and what Wall Street believes is happening, he goes long or short. By doing this, he’s been able to grow his portfolio from $20K into $60M over the last 18 years.

2. Having a High-Risk Bucket — Chris believes everyone should have a “high-risk bucket of money” in their portfolio used specifically for making big, risky bets. By cutting your unused streaming services or couponing at the grocery store, building a $500 nest egg to make these types of risky bets with could be easier than you think. Additionally, this is money you were spending anyway — now you’re just reallocating it somewhere that’s hopefully more impactful.

3. Humanoid Robots — The embodiment of AI is here. Chris believes it’s not decades away, but instead a few years away. Examples of companies doing some pretty incredible things with humanoid robots include Apptronik, Tesla, and Figure. With a massive manual labor shortage around the world, humanoid robots are bound to help alleviate this problem for multi-trillion dollar companies like Amazon.

👉 Q&A: Pre-IPO Investing, Real Numbers Behind House Hacking, & Tax Refunds

Here’s a link to the Q&A episode that was posted this morning.

We answered questions from: Nathan, John, Bradley, Solomon, Rafael, Elizabeth, Diego, and AG.

You can submit questions for these episodes by asking them inside of the Rich Habits Network, replying to this email, or sending us a DM on Instagram.

The Rich Habits Podcast is available on Spotify, Apple, iHeart, YouTube, and wherever else you get your content!

Robert’s Callout

Diversification across asset classes can really pay off.

Over the past three years, Gold has seen returns that are more than double that of the S&P 500. Over the last 20 years, Gold has returned +619% against the S&P 500’s +579%.

Ever since I started publicly sharing my approach to personal finance and investing — I’ve consistently said that I love having a balance between stocks, crypto, real estate, and precious metals.

In my case, I have physical gold and GLD — but simply investing via ETFs is plenty fine if you don’t want to actually purchase precious metals yourself. I don’t share this to brag, but instead to remind everyone why diversification is so important. My stocks and crypto haven’t faired all that well in 2025, but having an allocation toward precious metals has provided a cushion through all of the volatility.

Austin’s Callout

The S&P 500 tends to perform well after the VIX spikes above 45.

The market’s “fear gauge” (Volatility Index — VIX) spiked to a high of 60 last week before declining dramatically (-36%) in just 24-hours after Trump announced his 90-day pause on tariffs. Since 1997, there have been 11 times the VIX spiked above 45 — and 10 out of 11 times, the S&P 500 was higher four months later by an average of +6.4%.

The only exception was the 2008 Financial Crisis as shown in green above.

We’re by no means “out of the woods” just yet, but I believe the market-wide panic is beginning to trend lower. The VIX has fallen another -18% this week — now hovering around 31.

Shown above is the performance of the S&P 500 after the six largest 1-day VIX declines in history (like what we just experienced last week). When you exclude the 2008 Financial Crisis, on average we’re +12% higher 6-months later, and +17% higher 1-year later.

The Rich Habits Radar

• 👉 Big banks posted better than expected Q1 earnings.

• 👉 SEC approved a ‘green’ stock exchange.

• 👉 United Airlines offered a dual forecast — one recessionary and one stable.

• 👉 Nvidia forecasted a -$5.5B loss due to banned AI chip sales to China.

• 👉 Gold hit a record high, surged above $3,300/oz.

• 👉 Spotify experienced a major outage.

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Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or a recommendation for any investment. The content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.