Thoughtful Money · Oct 11, 2026 · 1h 41m · 83m saved
With Danielle Park, Portfolio Manager, Croft Financial Group · John Llodra, Lead Partner, New Harbor Financial Group · Mike Preston, Lead Partner, New Harbor Financial Group
The 10-year Treasury yield has risen 130 basis points in seven months, Danielle Park said. In 2000, 2007 and 2022, a rise of about 80 basis points was enough to start a correction in stocks and credit.
Many people hear about higher rates and expect only damage. Danielle welcomes them. Savers earn income again, and she expects the prices of houses, stocks and corporate bonds to fall toward levels that make sense at today's rates.
"We would have used low rates to get out of debt. Instead, we used low rates to add more and more debt, right?" — Danielle Park
Danielle Park, Portfolio Manager at Croft Financial Group, on Thoughtful Money, is a lawyer and CFA charterholder who built her own investment counsel firm and sold it to Croft in January 2026. She writes the blog Juggling Dynamite, and she brought a deck of about 50 charts to her first interview on the show in nearly a year.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 1 hour 41 minutes of audio, 18 minutes of reading.
Here are the 14 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
Higher rates help savers and anyone without debt, Danielle said, even as they squeeze borrowers
She blames this year's rise in yields on the oil spike after the Iran war, not on US deficits
China and Canada carry more debt relative to GDP than the US and pay lower yields
About half of US mortgages now carry a rate above 4%, and refinancing applications fell 56% from a year earlier in September
Canadian homes still cost 8.9 times household income, and about 10 times in Toronto and Vancouver
Older owners with second homes are a growing source of housing supply, she said
Nvidia and Meta are holding up the S&P 500 while about 70% of stocks are down 10%
The S&P 500 yields about 1% while bonds pay more than 4%, which she said leaves stocks with a thin cushion
The worst stock losses usually come after the Fed starts cutting, not before
She would keep bond maturities around 3 to 5 years until corporate bonds reprice
New Harbor's partners agreed on valuations but doubt the reset will be clean, expecting policymakers to step in again
1. The Case for Higher Rates
Adam Taggart, founder and host of Thoughtful Money, asked Danielle how she felt about markets that are still near all-time highs. She said she feels encouraged. Easy money grew debt "in epic proportions" after the 2008 financial crisis, and higher rates now put a cost back on borrowing.
Savers are paid again, and buyers who waited will pay less
She said deposit yields and, over time, dividend yields should rise. House prices have already fallen sharply in Canada, and she expects that to continue in major cities.
"So, I'm happy to say that now we're in a period where math matters and ... compensation for capital is back." — Danielle Park
She learned to fear debt early in her career
Danielle said she is not without sympathy for borrowers facing higher payments, but she has spent her career warning people off debt.
"I learned that debt is a four-letter word and especially if you're using it for consumption purposes or if you're borrowing to speculate in financial assets, this level of risk is so largely unappreciated." — Danielle Park
Adam raised margin debt, which sits near record highs. Danielle said the pain will reach anyone holding leveraged assets, and also careful investors who own the same assets as leveraged ones, because a sell-off hits everyone in the market and can spread to jobs. Adam compared low rates to an addiction with a painful withdrawal, and Danielle extended the comparison to a strong narcotic.
