The stock market ended 2025 on a high, soaring prices, strong earnings, and AI-driven innovation everywhere you turned. But underneath that optimism, a question keeps bubbling up: Are we in a bubble? And more importantly, what should we actually do with our money right now?
That’s the question HerMoney tackled in our latest episode, with none other than Karen Finerman — co-founder of our InvestingFixx club, host of our sister podcast How She Does It, and longtime panelist on CNBC’s Fast Money. She sat down with Jean Chatzky to recap what worked (and what didn’t) in 2025, and to share her sharp, clear-eyed perspective on how to invest as we head into a new year.
Whether it’s Google’s surprising strength, the mixed signals from the AI sector, or what you can learn from bad days in the market, Karen talks about how to invest in 2026.
Stay Long, Even When Things Look Shaky
Jean Chatzky: In your thread on X, you mentioned Google was your biggest winner in 2025. The Bear case was pretty strong with fears about AI destroying search, weak Gemini rollout, antitrust, fallout, and slowing cloud growth. None of that actually played out. So what did happen with Google? When did you see the tide start to turn?
Karen Finerman: So the tides started to turn in the spring. I have been a Google shareholder for a long, long time. This was a frustrating hold for a while, but their rollout of AI was so bad in the last two years. Remember, first they called it Bard, and then they called it Gemini. And really, they did a terrible job. The product wasn’t great. I was surprised.
There were a lot of fears about AI coming, and how it was going to be over for search. And then they put out a quarter that wasn’t bad, and people thought, all right, well maybe the end is not here for search. And then they seemed to get their AI game together. They put out Gemini more recently, then they put out New Gemini, and they put out Nano Bananas. It really is just quite extraordinary. Not only did search not disintegrate, but AI actually seemed to help search. So that was really big. They’re just hitting on all cylinders.
Let Your Losses Teach You Something
Jean Chatzky: You did mention Liberation Day and how tough that was emotionally, but that you stuck with your positions and that you even added. Talk about that moment and what you’ve learned about how to invest that has helped you stay the course when things got rough.
Karen Finerman: It was rough, I have to say. The one thing that I look at that helps me is the volatility index. When that goes berserk, it’s a measure of how much a market can move in one day. But really, what it is, people call it the fear and greed gauge. And so when it went from the high teens up into the fifties during the days after Liberation Day, I was just getting crushed. I’m like, you know what? I am not selling my stocks. When the volatility index is in the fifties, that’s fear at its maximum.
So that has been a guide for me always. And I try to think about, if I owned nothing of anything, are these prices that I would want to buy things? And the older you get, you’ve seen a bunch of these, you have some perspective, and you think, all right, well, however things are at this moment, they won’t always be like that. That’s such an important lesson.
Learn How To Invest With A Community
At InvestingFixx, hundreds of women are learning how to invest together. Every other Monday night, the club gathers on Zoom to evaluate real stocks, vote on what to add to their portfolio, and ask smart, thoughtful questions. It’s not about being perfect investors; it’s about showing up curious, engaged, and ready to grow their knowledge.
Co-founded by Jean Chatzky and Karen Finerman, InvestingFixx isn’t about chasing the next hot sector. It’s about building true financial confidence and long-term investing skills. And according to Karen, the community is making serious progress:
“Collectively, they’ve made very wise decisions, and I really like that. Both on what to buy and what to sell. And they’ve done a better job on a number of [stock picks] than I have.”
In 2025, the club’s model portfolio beat the market. But the real win is members learning how to invest with strategy, discipline, and a strong support system, together.
MORE ON HERMONEY:
- How to Start Investing If You Only Have $1,000 (Or Less)
- Investing for Beginners: Top 10 Questions, Answered
- Tori Dunlap on How Women Can Build Wealth, Invest Smart, and Ditch Perfectionism
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