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Recent market swings are causing whiplash for everyday investors. Sarah Levy, CEO of the digital investment platform Betterment, offers her advice during this volatile moment. Amid the noise around our economy, Levy extends a clear-eyed vision for how to help everyone find their own unique approach to leadership, saving, and investing. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. The investment markets this year have been nutty so far, a booming Trump Bump followed by the so-called Trump Slump. Betterment’s clients must be concerned about this whipsawing back-and-forth, as we all are. Are there things you’re hearing from them? Are there things you’re telling them in this environment? In large part, our advice is stay the course. It can be a good moment when markets are volatile to think about your tax strategy and tax-loss harvesting. So sometimes there are opportunities. But beyond that, we generally believe that the right long-term allocations set you up to withstand volatility. Some of the long-term tenets about investing have been questioned a little bit of late because the market and indexes have become so concentrated in a handful of Big Tech names (Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Google). The indexes that maybe we’ve thought of as diversified investments may not be quite that way anymore. Do you have a philosophy about that one way or the other? Well, I think your point is absolutely right when you’re thinking about the S&P 500, for example. And I think the point of a diversified portfolio, which incorporates international, small cap, fixed income, really is an attempt to say, “Look, when you’re having these anomalies that sometimes are short-term and sometimes are permanent corrections, if your time horizon is long-term, that should correct itself. And the right allocations should withstand the test of time.” And that’s how we build our portfolios. But it takes steeling yourself against maybe the headlines, and the fear, and stuff that is prevalent around us. Our advice would be, don’t get sidetracked by the headlines. President Trump seems undeterred by the falling stock market, or even the idea of a recession, though he doesn’t use the R word, right? He talks about a little pain from tariff fallouts and whatnot. Do you get what the strategy is of the administration? I’ll say that I find myself confused sometimes. I think it is very difficult to get into the mind of the administration right now, so I wouldn’t want to prognosticate on that. I tend to focus on questions like, what are the things that directly are going to impact my business and on what time horizon? Some of this short-term stuff, I’m trying to ride it out. Are there any new products you’re considering given the market volatility? I saw that Goldman Sachs has offered clients a stable stock list to consider in case of a recession. Nothing like a market downturn to get folks focused on risk again, right? Well, the interesting thing for us is that we have investing and savings on the platform. And over the last couple of years, while rates have been high, introducing bond investing has been really like the next wave for us. When there’s volatility, we see more deposits flowing into cash, that’s still paying. We have a high-yield cash account paying 4% or 4.25%. That’s still a really good principal protected return. But we don’t have anything in particular. We’re not a shop that is asking people to check in daily on their investments because we just don’t think that breeds good behavior. While you ran Nickelodeon as COO, the mission was what’s good for kids is good for business. I’m curious how much responsibility you think business has, particularly today, to be part of the checks and balances in American society? That’s a perfect question for me because I’ve always been super private. I’m not big on social media. And I have always felt it was controversial. I didn’t want to speak out on everything because I’m not comfortable doing that. And because I want to separate myself personally from the brand. And coming from a founder-led organization where he really was the brand, I think speaking out with his opinion made a lot of sense because they were one and the same. And one of the distinctions I wanted to make, and it was controversial with the employees more so than anything else, was they wanted to hear from me. And I said, “Look, if it impacts the business, I’ll talk about it loud and proud. But if it’s not about the business, we serve customers with different viewpoints, and my perspective is, we need to be a platform that offers choice.” And so, if that choice includes crypto, for those who like it, great. And for those who don’t want it, also great. Same with socially responsible investing portfolios. We have a climate portfolio. There are people who love that, and there are people who want nothing to do with it. Great. Nobody is asking you to opt in or to opt out. We’re giving you a choice so that you can pave your own way. And when at Nickelodeon you said, “What’s good for kids is good for business,” you meant, “What’s good for kids right now,” as opposed to what might be good for them in the future. That was when we started the early days of Nickelodeon, and we did a lot of research around preschool content, for example. We always wanted to enrich the content with good lessons. There was always a lot of educational underpinning and educators helping us with it. We were not trying to just sell kids a toy. Now, what ended up happening is if they fell in love with those characters, and they learned to count, then maybe they’d want to buy the toy that counted with them there. So hence, why it was good for business to basically do the right thing. Now we talk about eating your vegetables versus eating candy. Taking Robinhood as an example, I think they’re serving you a piece of cake, and then you wake up the next day, you’re like, “Oh, I really need a diet.” We’re saying, “Eat your vegetables, have some spinach.” You may be choking it down, but you feel pretty good the next day. So what’s at stake for everyday investors right now? How should they think about the role of their portfolio in their lives, in their personal values, in their future? What we always tell people is, “Think about your money. Which is to say, “Okay, you should always have an emergency savings account that is three to six months relatively liquid assets,” so that if you get in a bind, which happens on a lot of occasions, that’s there for you. That’s an early first principles recommendation that our folks make. Think about retirement early. Take advantage of whether it’s an IRA, a Roth versus a traditional. There are different rules depending on where you are in your life journey, and where your income is, and where you can really get great advantages from government policies, in terms of tax advantages. To me, at the end of the day, be invested with whatever you can. Start early. And in these worlds, and this time of uncertainty, people with advisers do better because they have someone they can call who they trust, who prevents them from making mistakes. We believe deeply that human and digital go hand in hand and everyone should choose how much of each they want and they’re comfortable with.
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E-Commerce
In Canada, President Donald Trump’s trade war has had an immediate effect on shoppers, many of whom are opting out of buying American products in protest. Some Canadian stores are even taking steps to make it easier for them to do so. In a survey conducted this month by market research firm Leger, 68% of Canadians said they’ve reduced their purchases of American products in stores and 65% said the same of their online purchases. Additionally, 71% of those surveyed said they’ve increased their purchases of products made in Canada. With tariffs set to inflate the price of goods produced internationally, made-in labels that note a product’s country of origin have become more important than ever. It’s led some retailers to experiment with new ways to inform shoppers about locally produced goods, like this black star that denotes European brands currently being used by one European grocery store operator. [Screenshot: Sobeys] Sobeys, a supermarket chain based in Nova Scotia, launched an in-store So Canadian promotion backed by a patriotic TV commercial to highlight the chain’s commitment to Canadian-made products that it labels with a maple leaf. Loblaws, a chain headquartered in Ontario, has done the same, and it created a specific Prepared in Canada page on its website for online shoppers who want to buy only domestically made goods. [Screenshot: Loblaws] Last week Loblaws said it will also begin adding a triangular T label to products that are pricier due to tariffs. Retailers faced consumer wrath when pandemic-era inflation set off a seemingly endless rise in prices, and the chain’s T label is a way to communicate to consumers why items now cost more. It’s simple: When customers see a T on the price tag they know it has been directly sourced from the U.S. and impacted by tariffs, Loblaws CEO Per Bank wrote in a post on LinkedIn. Customers can be assured that when tariffs come off, any tariff pricing changes will be entirely removed. Bank noted that Loblaws is pro-Canada and not anti-USA, saying that the chain has many trusted U.S. vendors, but the updated labels reflect that the store is being responsive to the needs of its customers. Because of the tariffs imposed from the U.S., the Canadian government has been forced to put a range of retaliatory tariffs in place, on roughly $30B worth of goods . . . like poultry, dairy items, fruits and vegetables, and more, he wrote. This will unfortunately have consequences. No doubt one of those consequences will be U.S. brands taking a hit to their bottom lines.
Category:
E-Commerce
Over the past several weeks, there have been a series of reports about foreign tourists to the U.S. being detained, held, and even deported while trying to cross the border on a trip. Experts believe that increased uncertainty about the safety and stability of travel to the U.S. could have a detrimental effect on the nations tourism economy. Tourism Economics is a global travel data company that calculates travel forecasts based on the economic and demographic outlook for certain regions. The company initially predicted that foreign travel to the U.S. would increase by 8.8% in 2025but, last month, that shifted to a 5.1% decrease in response to polarizing Trump administration policies and rhetoric,” according to a statement shared with The Washington Post. The new report also predicts that spending by foreign tourists could decrease by 11%, leading to a total economic loss of $18.8 billion. The issue for holiday travelers is that they have a choice of when and where to travel, Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, wrote in an email to Fast Company. This ultimate discretion means that antipathy towards a countrys leadership can have appreciable effects. This is on top of the negative economic consequences of tariffs. According to Neri Karra Sillaman, an entrepreneur expert at Oxford University and author of the upcoming book Pioneers: 8 Principles of Business Longevity from Immigrant Entrepreneurs, foreign travelers fears of higher visa scrutiny and extended processing times under the Trump administration could be a major deterrentultimately leading to a decline across the tourism and hospitality industries. Recent reports of detained tourists spark concern On the campaign trail, President Trump promised to launch mass deportations of immigrants. And as he ramps up the rate of deportations, multiple travelers from outside the U.S. have reported being detained by ICE while trying to enter the country, despite possessing some form of visa. Early this month, CNN reported that German tattoo artist Jessica Brösche was vacationing in Mexico when she decided to travel to the U.S. with a friend. Instead, she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the San Ysidro port of entry and held in detention for over a month. Brösche entered the U.S. via the Visa Waiver Program agreement that the U.S. has with Germany and 40 other countries. According to a statement from ICE to CNN, Brösche was detained due to the violation of the terms and conditions of her admission.” Her friends contest that this was a misunderstanding of Brösches intentions to provide free tattoos for her friends in the states, which ICE took to mean that she intended to work in the country without a work visa. Other reports of detained foreign travelers in the last few weeks have included a German hiker who was allegedly detained and deported despite possessing a B2 travel visa; a Canadian entrepreneur who claims she was arrested by ICE while trying to obtain a new visa; and a British tourist on a backpacking trip who says she was held in an ICE detention center for having a travel visa rather than a working visa. An increasingly bleak outlook for the tourism economy Sillaman says these occurrences could point to increased visa scrutiny more broadly under the Trump administration, leading travelers to view entering the U.S. as too difficult or unpredictable. Even if you get a visa, you have the risk of being detained or to be denied, Sillaman says. She adds that, even as someone with a valid U.S. visa whos married to an American, shes concerned about entering the country under the current conditions. I’m telling you my perspective as someone who is not a citizen: I’ve never broken the law, I’m an academic, I have a good job, yet when I enter the U.S., especially at this time, I do have a little bit of hesitation. This is coming from someone who shouldn’t have any reason to fear. [Image: courtesy Adam Sacks/Tourism Economics] The latest data released by the government reflects the fact that overseas visitors are increasingly hesitant to visit the U.S. Compared to last February, foreign travelers were down 2.4% total, with sharp declines in visitors from Africa, Asia, and Central America. In response to Trump’s proposed tariffs against Canada, Canadians have seemingly begun boycotting travel to the U.S., with one report noting that “return trips” to Canada had dropped by 23% last month (implying that those Canadians were no longer visiting the U.S. at all). The U.S. Travel Association predicted that just a 10% annual dip in Canadian tourism could result in a $2.1 billion loss and jeopardize 14,000 American jobs. Sacks noted that this travel slump isn’t entirely new: During Trumps first administration, policies like his 2019 travel ban on several majority-Muslim countries caused travel to decline sharply after three years of growth. [Image: courtesy Adam Sacks/Tourism Economics] As of 2024, visits to the U.S. have still not recovered to 2019 levels, Sacks says. Overseas travel was down 13%, Canada was down 2.4%, and Mexico was down 7%. So the effects of antipathy towards the U.S. will rewind some of the progress that has been made toward full recovery. Sillaman argues that anti-American sentiment could have ripple effects across a number of industries. For businesses looking to host conferences and events with international employees, logistics could become more strained, and some foreign employees may choose not to attend. Additionally, she adds, the hospitality industry is one of the largest employers of immigrant workers in the U.S. If those workers find it more difficult to attain and use H-2B visas, this significant driver of the tourism economy could face significant workforce issues. A lot of the people who work in this particular industry are there on work visas, and this creates a potential issue particularly in places like Miami and New York that are going to bear the brunt of this impactwere more likely to see higher prices and lower service levels,” Sillaman says. “This happened during the pandemic, and my fear is that it can become much more difficult in the future. While Trump has yet to enact an official travel ban in his second term (though experts warn that a new one could be imminent), Sillaman believes that the current administrations attitude toward immigrants and foreign travelers has only become more harsh. While there is not a travel ban, it is on another level, Sillaman says. Its chilling. I think it’s a lot more planned, a lot more systematicI think Trump is also much more confident this time around. He keeps talking about having a mandate. There is a lot more brazenness.
Category:
E-Commerce
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