# The Secret World of ETFs

An episode of [Suze Orman's Women & Money (And Everyone Smart Enough To Listen)](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1439621652), 31 May 2026, 24 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2df1102a-5761-4c99-b489-aabd0161f8fe/44e0936e-923c-43c7-9e2a-aade00edf4d3/8321d3b5-72ec-4f80-ba66-b45a0152bf53/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=4e05fb00-5a5b-4ed9-b353-aade00edf4dd

On this Suze School, Suze explains how ETFs are created and how they really work, using Keith Fitz-Gerald’s new ETF FITZ as an example. Learn more about the Ultimate Scam Protection program here: SuzeOrman.com Watch Suze’s YouTube Channel Jumpstart financial wellness for your employees: https://bit.ly/SecureSave Protect your financial future with the Must Have Docs: https://bit.ly/3Vq1V3G Get your savings going with Alliant Credit Union: https://bit.ly/3rg0Yio Get Suze’s special offers for podcast listeners at suzeorman.com/offer Join Suze’s Women & Money Community for FREE and ASK SUZE your questions which may just end up on the podcast. Download the app by following one of these links: CLICK HERE FOR APPLE: https://apple.co/2KcAHbH CLICK HERE FOR GOOGLE PLAY: https://bit.ly/3curfMI See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:08] Suze: May 31st, 2026. Welcome everybody to the Women and Money podcast,
[0:13] Suze: and everybody smart enough to listen. And today is Suze School.
[0:18] Suze: So get out your Suze notebooks. But before I start,
[0:22] Suze: two things. Number one. June 1st, tomorrow, 7:30 p.m. East
[0:27] Suze: Coast time, I will be on live on CNN, Erin Burnett,
[0:32] Suze: please tune in. You never know what we're gonna tell you,
[0:35] Suze: 'cause I never know what I'm gonna say.
[0:37] Suze: Do you know it's actually been years since I've been
[0:39] Suze: on live TV. Anyway, that's number one. Number two, make
[0:43] Suze: sure you register for the June 4th webinar. Go to
[0:48] Suze: Suze Orman.com. It starts at 6 p.m. East Coast time,
[0:52] Suze: and again, it is free. If you already saw or
[0:55] Suze: registered for April 23rd webinar, you don't have to register again,
[1:01] Suze: but I can tell you, we now have over 100,000
[1:07] Suze: registrations. Makes me happy. It's gonna be me and Keith
[1:11] Suze: for the entire time, very different than the April 23rd one,
[1:16] Suze: which was personal finances. This is all about what stocks
[1:19] Suze: to buy, what ETFs to buy, real estate, REITs, bonds, gold, Bitcoin,
[1:25] Suze: all of it, got it? Don't forget there will be
[1:28] Suze: birthday pricing because the next day,
[1:31] Suze: June 5th is my birthday. So if you've ever wanted
[1:36] Suze: to buy the Must-Have Documents or the Ultimate Scam Protection,
[1:41] Suze: that is the time to do it. You can kind
[1:43] Suze: of guess at what that price will be. All right,
[1:48] Suze: are we ready to begin now? It is no secret,
[1:51] Suze: or maybe you still don't know, so maybe it is
[1:53] Suze: a secret that Keith brought out Fitz, F I T Z.
[1:59] Suze: The ETF that we have been talking about now for what,
[2:03] Suze: two years, and that came out last Thursday.
[2:08] Suze: And it came out to a tremendous, tremendous success. Over
[2:13] Suze: 1 million shares were purchased, priced around $25. And then
[2:20] Suze: again on Friday,
[2:23] Suze: about 600,000 shares were purchased right around the same price,
[2:28] Suze: and so that means about $40 million went into that
[2:35] Suze: ETF in just two days. So when you compare it
[2:39] Suze: to everything else that's out there.
[2:42] Suze: This is one of the greatest successes of ETFs that
[2:45] Suze: came out that are a managed ETF, not Bitcoin or
[2:49] Suze: some big ETF, but really congratulations to Keith and to
[2:54] Suze: all of you who participated, tremendous success. But what I
[2:59] Suze: need all of you to understand is an ETF is
[3:04] Suze: not like an IPO when you bring it out. An
[3:08] Suze: IPO is initial public offering.
[3:12] Suze: And when it goes to market, there are always enough
[3:17] Suze: shares for you to buy, sell, do anything you want with,
[3:21] Suze: and all the brokerage firms usually offer it. With an
[3:26] Suze: exchange traded fund, it doesn't work that way on any level.
[3:33] Suze: First of all, when an exchange traded fund first comes out,
[3:38] Suze: what happens is each firm gets to decide when they're
[3:42] Suze: going to list it at their firm.
[3:44] Suze: Or if they're going to list it. And when a
[3:49] Suze: new ETF comes out, especially with somebody that isn't like
[3:54] Suze: a big person, not that Keith isn't, but you know
[3:57] Suze: what I mean, like a BlackRock or any of those,
[4:01] Suze: sometimes they don't want to take a chance on it.
[4:04] Suze: Sometimes they go, oh, we'll see, we'll just see how
[4:06] Suze: it's doing.
[4:08] Suze: And even though Schwab and Fidelity and Vanguard and E-Trade
[4:13] Suze: and T. Rowe Price and a lot of firms let
[4:17] Suze: it be traded on their platforms, many like Merrill Lynch
[4:21] Suze: did not, and that aggravated a lot of you. You
[4:25] Suze: didn't quite understand it, and that's because an exchange traded
[4:30] Suze: fund is not like an individual stock.
[4:35] Suze: That there's only one stock listed everywhere, can go up
[4:39] Suze: or down, that's it. An exchange traded fund and especially FITZ,
[4:44] Suze: currently has 28 individual stocks in it.
[4:50] Suze: Twenty-eight. So when you buy it, there has to be
[4:55] Suze: enough shares in that exchange traded fund for you to
[5:00] Suze: be able to purchase a slice of all those shares.
[5:05] Suze: A run on the ETF happened, which means more money
[5:11] Suze: came into the ETF than any of the market makers
[5:16] Suze: were expecting. So what did they do? They had to
[5:20] Suze: close it down for a few minutes and therefore put
[5:24] Suze: more shares of all those stocks in there.
[5:29] Suze: So that your money could buy actual shares, and that
[5:33] Suze: happened three or four times on Thursday.
[5:38] Suze: And that was a really good sign. Everybody. What that
[5:43] Suze: said is more people wanted to buy Fitz F I
[5:48] Suze: T Z than what the New York Stock Exchange and
[5:53] Suze: the market makers thought were going to be bought. Just
[5:58] Suze: that simple. Well, to tell you the truth, they were shocked.
[6:03] Suze: They were surprised.
[6:05] Suze: And they were the ones that lost out in many
[6:09] Suze: ways because they didn't fund it enough, not anybody's problem.
[6:15] Suze: It was their risk. It's their stock that they put
[6:18] Suze: into this exchange traded fund, and guess what? They kept
[6:22] Suze: having to put more and more and more in as
[6:26] Suze: time goes on.
[6:29] Suze: And as FITZ makes its mark, people start to know it,
[6:36] Suze: every place around will go, why didn't we do that
[6:40] Suze: the day it came out. The other thing I want
[6:44] Suze: you to understand.
[6:46] Suze: You do not have to be afraid of missing out.
[6:50] Suze: It's not like an IPO, a stock that comes out
[6:53] Suze: at 18, like, I'll never forget this with Facebook, comes
[6:58] Suze: out at 18, goes to 48 immediately, then right back
[7:01] Suze: down again to 18. Now it's Meta, of course, but
[7:05] Suze: it's not like that because you have 28 individual stocks
[7:11] Suze: in there.
[7:13] Suze: All those stocks have to move a certain percentage or
[7:16] Suze: whatever for you to get a tremendous move in the
[7:21] Suze: exchange traded funds price so you don't have to worry
[7:26] Suze: about missing out on anything. So it came out at
[7:30] Suze: about 25.30 ($25.30). That's where I bought it at. That's
[7:37] Suze: where Keith probably bought it at. I have a feeling,
[7:40] Suze: not sure exactly, but.
[7:42] Suze: Here's the thing.
[7:44] Suze: Stop thinking you got to get in right away. If
[7:47] Suze: you don't buy it today, it's gonna be too late.
[7:49] Suze: It's an exchange traded fund. It is not a stock,
[7:55] Suze: and you are not to treat it like a stock,
[7:57] Suze: which is why you buy an exchange traded fund. Listen,
[8:02] Suze: individual stocks will make bigger moves all the time by
[8:08] Suze: themselves because they're individual.
[8:11] Suze: They go up, they go down, they're priced just as
[8:14] Suze: they are.
[8:16] Suze: For an exchange traded fund, I'm going to repeat this, everybody,
[8:21] Suze: 28 stocks, they all move. Some move up, some move down,
[8:26] Suze: and it averages out. So therefore stop worrying you didn't
[8:32] Suze: miss out on anything. It's just that simple. The reason
[8:38] Suze: that you want
[8:39] Suze: an exchange traded fund like FITZ for instance is if
[8:44] Suze: you look at the 28 stocks that are in there
[8:48] Suze: in the portfolio, every one of those stocks are a
[8:53] Suze: stock that you would want to own, but a lot
[8:57] Suze: of you don't have the money to buy all 28.
[9:01] Suze: He can buy up to 30, by the way, that
[9:04] Suze: you don't have the money to buy all 28 to
[9:07] Suze: watch all 28,
[9:09] Suze: to keep dollar cost averaging every single month into the 28.
[9:14] Suze: You don't have maybe the time and the knowledge of
[9:16] Suze: how do you rebalance the 28 stocks that are in there,
[9:20] Suze: and those are all things that Keith will be doing
[9:24] Suze: for you. You just have to do one thing, and
[9:28] Suze: that one thing is this you buy FITZ, the exchange
[9:34] Suze: traded fund.
[9:35] Suze: And that's it. And you own a little bit of
[9:39] Suze: all the stocks that I know you want to own.
[9:43] Suze: Now the question becomes, well, what's in it? Some of
[9:49] Suze: you are just so funny. Well, what's the top 10 holdings?
[9:54] Suze: What are they, Suze? I can't find them. They're all
[9:56] Suze: listed if you look, but here are the 28 stocks
[10:02] Suze: that make up the FITZ ETF:
[10:07] Suze: Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, JPMorgan Chase, Palantir, IONQ, Advanced Micro Devices, Broadcom,
[10:17] Suze: Lockheed Martin, Walmart, RTX, Chevron, Eli Lilly, CrowdStrike, Rocket,
[10:24] Suze: LabCorp, ABV, Care Trust REIT, Gilead Sciences, Microsoft, GE Vernova,
[10:32] Suze: Waste Management, Exxon, Costco, Amazon, Alphabet, Kinder Morgan, Meta Platform,
[10:40] Suze: and Proctor and Gamble.
[10:43] Suze: You have incredible variety there. Do you see that? If
[10:47] Suze: all of your artificial intelligence stocks now, IONQ, Palantir, if
[10:52] Suze: they are all skyrocketing, OK, they're skyrocketing in this portfolio
[10:58] Suze: as well. But if the other stocks are not, you're
[11:01] Suze: not going to have the movement in price as you
[11:04] Suze: would in the individual stocks. But I got news for you.
[11:09] Suze: When those stocks, do you remember Palantir going from 210
[11:14] Suze: all the way down to 125, IONQ going down to 25,
[11:20] Suze: from I think 85.
[11:22] Suze: Even if they do that within this portfolio, the other
[11:28] Suze: stocks that are in there will balance it out.
[11:31] Suze: And if you ask me, that is what the majority
[11:35] Suze: of you need right now. You need balance. That doesn't
[11:40] Suze: mean that if you have the ETF fits, that you
[11:44] Suze: don't own shares maybe of Palantir, IONQ, AMD, all of
[11:50] Suze: those that we've talked about in the past.
[11:53] Suze: That are doing incredible Tesla, all of them, you can
[11:57] Suze: have both.
[11:58] Suze: This is not an all or nothing investment strategy. So,
[12:03] Suze: that's what Fitz's ETF is about. This ETF was created
[12:10] Suze: for a long-term hold.
[12:13] Suze: He's calling it the must-have portfolio because everything in there
[12:19] Suze: happens to manufacture or is involved with things that most
[12:23] Suze: of you must have every day that you use, items
[12:27] Suze: that you need, you use, and you want.
[12:31] Suze: And so what that does is it creates a long
[12:35] Suze: term investment horizon, slow and steady, and the goal of
[12:42] Suze: this is that over a longer period of time, maybe
[12:46] Suze: a few years or whatever, that it should outperform the
[12:50] Suze: Standard and Poor's 500 index because really what's making the
[12:57] Suze: S&P go up are just a few of the stocks.
[13:01] Suze: That are in this portfolio, by the way, but your
[13:05] Suze: money is invested in 500 stocks, 1,000 stocks, 2,000 stocks
[13:11] Suze: that really that money isn't doing anything in those other stocks.
[13:17] Suze: Keith has created, in my opinion, an ETF where your
[13:21] Suze: money will be doing well in all the stocks that
[13:25] Suze: are in there, especially depending on what's happening in the economy.
[13:31] Suze: The political situations and in life in general. So how
[13:37] Suze: do you invest in FITZ? You invest on a dollar
[13:41] Suze: cost averaging basis. You do not put all your money
[13:46] Suze: in at one time. Now I bought it on Thursday. However,
[13:51] Suze: I put a substantial sum in, but not as much
[13:54] Suze: as I intend to put in over time.
[13:59] Suze: Because you have to dollar cost average in markets like this.
[14:05] Suze: You cannot just say, oh, the markets are down, here's
[14:07] Suze: all my money.
[14:09] Suze: And then all of a sudden it goes down more,
[14:11] Suze: and you can't take advantage of buying more shares when
[14:16] Suze: something goes from 210 to 180 to 150 to 125,
[14:21] Suze: and now it's back up again, all right?
[14:24] Suze: So, it's essential that's how you invest. So, if you
[14:28] Suze: are going to invest in FITZ, you have to have
[14:34] Suze: a very long term time horizon. Be patient with it.
[14:41] Suze: And understand you're gonna be doing a dollar cost averaging
[14:44] Suze: technique every single month. I don't care if it's $25
[14:50] Suze: a month, $50 a month, $5000 a month, you are
[14:54] Suze: not gonna put all your money in there at once.
[14:57] Suze: Does that mean that I want you to sell and
[15:00] Suze: get out of your VTI or your VO or all
[15:03] Suze: the other funds that I told you about? No.
[15:08] Suze: But there's a place for everything, and there is a
[15:11] Suze: place for FITZ in every single one of your portfolios
[15:17] Suze: in most cases. So, just something for you to think about,
[15:22] Suze: but don't expect it to skyrocket like SMH is doing now.
[15:27] Suze: Right, which was my favorite semiconductor ETF. It's all semiconductors,
[15:33] Suze: but watch if it turns around, watch it plummet. So, again,
[15:39] Suze: there's a time and place for everything, but it does
[15:43] Suze: dawn on me that maybe you should really understand what
[15:48] Suze: does it actually take for an ETF to come to market.
[15:55] Suze: So, here's what I want to tell you. Here's how
[15:57] Suze: it works. Ready?
[16:00] Suze: Every ETF starts with an idea, just that simple. Maybe
[16:05] Suze: it's a new way to invest in dividend paying stocks.
[16:09] Suze: Maybe it's a technology theme.
[16:12] Suze: Maybe it's a different approach to managing risk or maybe
[16:16] Suze: in Keith's case it's the belief that a carefully selected
[16:21] Suze: portfolio of exceptional companies can help you, the investor, build
[16:27] Suze: wealth over the long term. Can you underline long term?
[16:33] Suze: This is not something that you are going to trade.
[16:35] Suze: You do not buy this to sell it. You buy
[16:38] Suze: this to keep it because hopefully it will make you
[16:42] Suze: money forever until you really need that money. You need
[16:47] Suze: it maybe to buy a house. I don't know what
[16:49] Suze: for years from now, but just remember I said that.
[16:54] Suze: But you know, an idea is only the beginning of it.
[16:58] Suze: So once that idea was born, Keith had to build
[17:04] Suze: the exchange traded fund. What does that mean? It means
[17:08] Suze: he had to get tons of lawyers involved. Next, regulatory
[17:13] Suze: filings are made. He had to make them with the
[17:17] Suze: Securities and Exchange Commission.
[17:20] Suze: And he had to detail all kinds of things and
[17:23] Suze: disclose everything in writing. Then he had to determine exactly
[17:30] Suze: what the ETF will own.
[17:33] Suze: After that, market makers and authorized participants prepare the systems
[17:40] Suze: that allow shares to be created and traded. Do you
[17:44] Suze: even know what a market maker is and an authorized participant?
[17:50] Suze: I bet you don't, but to put it very simply,
[17:54] Suze: a market maker essentially owns one of the stocks that
[17:59] Suze: maybe is in this ETF.
[18:02] Suze: And when this ETF comes out, what do they do?
[18:06] Suze: They put the shares that they own into the ETF
[18:10] Suze: and maybe there's a whole lot of different market makers
[18:13] Suze: depending on which stocks are in there, and that's kind
[18:16] Suze: of what happened when this first came out. They didn't
[18:19] Suze: put enough shares in there because nobody had a clue
[18:23] Suze: that as many shares were gonna be wanted as there
[18:27] Suze: were the first day. Everybody was testing the water.
[18:32] Suze: Which is why it kind of came out secretly, believe
[18:34] Suze: it or not, and all of you thought it was
[18:37] Suze: really gonna be announced on June 4th. We wanted to
[18:40] Suze: make sure that everything was working perfectly with Keith's ETF
[18:46] Suze: before over 100,000 of you are introduced to it, and
[18:50] Suze: then later on, a whole lot more really because of
[18:54] Suze: other things that are planned besides the market makers.
[18:59] Suze: You have authorized participants, typically, everybody, large banks or market
[19:05] Suze: making firms, and they can create or redeem ETF shares
[19:09] Suze: in large blocks, usually 50,000 shares at a time. And
[19:14] Suze: when they do that, by the way, that's called a
[19:16] Suze: creation unit.
[19:18] Suze: So, that's just a little bit of what starts to
[19:20] Suze: go on, all right? So, you have market makers and
[19:24] Suze: authorized participants that prepared the systems that allow shares to
[19:28] Suze: be created and traded, all right?
[19:31] Suze: How long does that take? It takes months.
[19:35] Suze: Sometimes it takes longer, and once everything is ready, the
[19:39] Suze: ETF begins trading on an exchange. Now, here's what most
[19:46] Suze: people don't realize and what I talked about at the
[19:49] Suze: beginning of this podcast. Just because an ETF begins trading
[19:55] Suze: does not mean every brokerage firm in America immediately makes
[20:01] Suze: it available to their clients.
[20:04] Suze: Each brokerage firm has its own review process. Do you
[20:09] Suze: get that, everybody? It has its own compliance department, its
[20:13] Suze: own technology systems, its own timetables. Now, some firms, and
[20:20] Suze: many did on Thursday.
[20:21] Suze: Can make a new ETF available quickly. Others like Merrill
[20:27] Suze: and a few others take days. Some take weeks, and
[20:32] Suze: some even take longer, which is exactly what was happening
[20:36] Suze: on Thursday. Yet some of you were so upset, and
[20:42] Suze: you were upset because your brokerage firm would not allow
[20:46] Suze: you to purchase shares immediately.
[20:50] Suze: And even on the Women and Money Community app, one
[20:53] Suze: person said, Don't you think you should have waited
[20:57] Suze: until you were ready and everybody was going to carry it? Now,
[21:01] Suze: I understand that reaction, but here's the truth. If Keith
[21:06] Suze: had waited until every single brokerage platform was ready, he
[21:10] Suze: might still be waiting months from now.
[21:14] Suze: So at some point, every ETF has to make a decision.
[21:20] Suze: You launch and you let the market decide and then
[21:24] Suze: you continue working with the brokerage firms as they complete
[21:29] Suze: their onboarding processes and that is how the ETF industry
[21:34] Suze: works now I just want to make sure that you
[21:38] Suze: understand something.
[21:40] Suze: What happened with FITZ wasn't because nobody cared.
[21:46] Suze: It existed because so many people wanted to buy it immediately.
[21:51] Suze: Think about that. The issue wasn't lack of interest. The
[21:56] Suze: issue was demand. People were calling their firms, checking their accounts,
[22:01] Suze: looking for the ticker, trying to place orders. That's not
[22:05] Suze: evidence of failure. That's evidence of excitement.
[22:10] Suze: And while I know Keith is grateful for that enthusiasm,
[22:15] Suze: I want to be very clear about something.
[22:18] Suze: This launch is not the achievement. This launch is simply
[22:23] Suze: the beginning. Anyone can launch an ETF. The real challenge
[22:28] Suze: is earning trust day after day, month after month, year
[22:33] Suze: after year, not through marketing, not through hype, not through promises,
[22:38] Suze: but through discipline, through transparency, and through consistency and through
[22:43] Suze: making decisions that put you first for years.
[22:48] Suze: Keith and I talked about creating something. I wanted him
[22:52] Suze: to create something that reflected our beliefs about investing, something
[22:58] Suze: that wasn't built around the latest fad, something that I
[23:01] Suze: just wanted designed for people like you who want to
[23:05] Suze: own exceptional businesses and stay focused on the long term.
[23:11] Suze: And guess what? Keith did that.
[23:15] Suze: So, until tomorrow night when you're all going to tune
[23:18] Suze: in to Erin Burnett on CNN, right? 7:30.
[23:23] Suze: June 4th for the webinar with Keith and myself. Don't
[23:29] Suze: miss that. And of course the birthday pricing on items
[23:34] Suze: that you absolutely need and you should want. So until then,
[23:39] Suze: there's only one thing that I want you to remember
[23:41] Suze: when it comes to your money, and it is this
[23:44] Suze: people first, then money, then things. Now you stay safe.
[23:49] Suze: Bye bye.

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