US Administration's Fiscal Policy

With Trump's tariffs causing concern for Governments and Businesses world-wide and even spooking investors like Warren Buffet, (Warren Buffett on why U.S. fiscal policy 'scares' him), is the US dollar losing it's Reserve status? 

From what I've heard and read it's exactly what's happening, but most of the money is moving to Gold (According to European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde) with only a small percentage going to the second major currency, the Euro. According to this article: The euro’s path to reserve status, (the euro accounted for about 20 per cent of the allocated reserves, while the $US dollar held a dominant share of 58 per cent in fourth quarter of 2024). 

Also check out this video: Forget the Dollar - Lagarde Says the Euro's Moment Is Now (If Europe Acts!)

Deeming Rates Update

The deeming rates on super, shares and other investments etc. is changing. These are the rates of return the government assumes people earn on financial assets. 

They have been frozen at 0.25 per cent and 2.25 per cent since 2020, but from 20 September 2025, a deeming rate of 0.75% will apply to financial assets under $64,200 for singles and $106,200 for couples combined. Assets over this amount will be deemed at a rate of 2.75%. 

These rates are important because, the Government has income rules for Government benefits and the amount you get paid is impacted by the "deemed" rate or return.

Pension Deeming Thresholds

The deeming rates for assets changed from $62,600 to $64,200 for a single person, and from $103,800 to $106,200 for a couple, on July 1, 2025. This means that a single pensioner's first $64,200 of financial assets are now deemed to earn income at the lower rate, and couples' combined assets up to $106,200 are also assessed at the lower rate. Read the article: Pension deeming thresholds changing, but what about deeming rates? for more details.

The Interesting History Of The US Stock Market

Talking about the Stock Market we seem to mean a different dimension, not a physical location.

However, the Stock Market does have physical locations.

Wall Street, also known as the Dow, or the NYSE, is located in New York.

Wall Street is the Address(or is it?).

Many people think of Wall Street and the Stock Market as one in the same, and indeed, it used to be that way.

Dutch settlers initially built a stockade here in 1653 for defense purposes.

In 1685 the stockade was torn down and a street was built called Wall Street.

In 1790 the first Stock Exchange was founded in Philadelphia which became the model for the New York Stock Exchange.

In 1817 the NYSE was officially opened.

The NYSE was moderately successful till the early 1900’s when the market entered a boom period which lasted more or less until 1929.

This boom period of course could not last forever, things were so out of kilter that people were mortgaging their homes and leveraging themselves to the limit to buy shares.

The boom period crashed in 1929 and caused the Great Depression.

The 1929 Crash was caused in part by the fact that the Stock Market was virtually unregulated, which it remained even until after the market crash of 1987 which saw the Dow suffer what was the largest losing day in the Market’s history.

Black Tuesday – October 29th, 1929

On Black Tuesday, a record of 16.4 million shares were traded and the ticker tape fell behind two and a half hours. On Monday, the stock market suffered a record one-day loss of around 13 percent. On Black Tuesday, the market suffered a loss of about 12 percent and did not recover for 22 years.

The economy eventually recovered from its catastrophic losses but the unregulated Stock Market practices that had partially caused the crash in the 1929 still existed and caused the stock market crash of 1987, which saw the Dow Jones suffer what was the largest single-day loss in the stock market’s history.

Today’s Stock Market

Today’s stock market consists of about 500,000 computers all networked with dealers for the NYSE or market makers for the NASDAQ. Up until recently the Dow still used human intervention but at present all trades are computerized.

The 2 most important stock market networks are the NYSE and NASDAQ.

NASDAQ is a relatively new Stock Trading System that has been computerized since its inception, where market makers normally lead trades.

It used to be that more risky stocks were traded on the NASDAQ than on the NYSE, but that distinction is fading.

The difference between the NYSE and Nasdaq is in the way securities on the exchanges are transacted between buyers and sellers.

The Nasdaq is a dealer’s market, wherein market participants are not buying from and selling to one another but to and from a dealer, which, in the case of the Nasdaq, is a market maker.

The NYSE is an auction market, wherein individuals are typically buying and selling to each other and there is an auction happening; the highest bidding price will be matched with the lowest asking price.

All these computers are linked to computers worldwide. These computers can be found in banks, small businesses, and large corporations.

These computers comprise the banking networks which make computerized transactions possible.

To give you an idea as to how much gets traded: in New York City Stock Market Trades amount to over $2.2 trillion dollars daily

How has the U.S. Stock Market done in Times of War?

The worst Stock Market returns were achieved during the Vietnam War. If this happened because of the uncertainty of the times is a good question. Stock Markets do not like uncertainty and will act negatively.

Returns during the Korean War however were excellent and averaged about 18% per year while 2nd world war returns averaged about 13% per year.

The 1987 Stock Market Crash

The crash of 1987 was one of the most remarkable financial catastrophies of the 20th century, perhaps since the start of the financial system several centuries ago. Why it was so strange because, it should not have happened and even today we cannot fully comprehend that it did happen.

Markets fell, an unbelievable 23%, and that they did so all over the world at the same time.

It only lasted one day.

There is no explanation. No definite reason for the crash has been isolated. The best that one can say is that there were too many similarities to the 1929 crash and that this became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Investment Strategy: The Investor’s Creed

This is a PLR article that was published many years ago. I'm reposting it here because, I think it's worthwhile reading. 

Fascinating, isn’t it, this stock market of ours, with its unpredictability, promise, and unscripted daily drama! But individual investors are even more interesting. We’ve become the product of a media driven culture that must have reasons, predictability, blame, scapegoats, and even that four-letter word, certainty.

We are a culture of investors where hindsight is rapidly replacing the reality-based foresight that once was flowing in our now real-time veins… just like downhill racing, grouse hunting, and Super Bowls.

The Stock Market is a dynamic place where investors can consistently make reasonable returns on their capital if they comply with the basic principles of the endeavor AND if they don’t measure their progress too frequently with irrelevant measuring devices.

The classic investment strategy is so simple and so trite that most investors dismiss it routinely and move on in their search for the holy investment grail(s): a stock market that only rises and a bond market capable of paying higher interest rates at stable or higher prices! Just not going to happen…

This is mythology, not investing. Investors who grasp the realities of these wonderful marketplaces recognize the opportunities and embrace them with an understanding that goes beyond the media hype and side show performance enhancement barkers.

Simply put, when investment grade securities rise in price [As they are now, with the DJIA finally putting together a successful attack on the 11,000 barrier], Take Your Profits, because that’s the purpose of investing in the stock market! On the flip side (and there has always been a flip side, more commonly dreaded as a “correction”), replenish your portfolio inventory with investment grade securities.

Yes, even some that you may have just sold days or weeks ago during the rally. This is much more than an oversimplification; it is a long-term (a year or two is not long term.) strategy that succeeds… cycle, after cycle, after cycle. Sounds an awful lot like Buy Low/Sell High doesn’t it? Obviously, Wall Street can’t let you know that it is quite so simple!

[Note that Dow Jones 11,000 was last breached during the infancy of this century, and that the last All Time High in this much too widely followed average occurred late in 1999. When the DJIA banner is repositioned on that historical peak of 11,700 or so, it will represent no less than six years of zero growth in this, the most respected, of all Market Indicators!

Would the media strip the gold medal from this Stock Market Icon if it knew that during these same years:

There have been significantly more stocks rising in price on a daily basis than moving lower. In fact, more than two-thirds of the last 68 months have been positive.

Since April 2000, there have been 120 more positive days in NYSE issue breadth than negative days. 250% more NYSE stocks established new high price levels than new lows. (4) We are working on our sixth consecutive year of positive issue breadth!] So understand that your portfolio statement values will rise and fall throughout time, and rather than rejoice or cry, you should be taking actions that will enhance your “Working Capital” and the ability of your portfolio to accomplish your long term goals and objectives.

Through the simple application of a few easy to memorize rules, you can plot a course to an investment portfolio that regularly achieves higher highs and (much more importantly), higher lows! Left to its own devices, like the DJIA for example, an unmanaged portfolio is likely to have long periods of unproductive sideways motion.

You can ill afford to travel six years at a break even pace, and it is foolish, even irresponsible, to expect any unmanaged or passively directed approach to be in sync with your personal financial needs.

Five simple concepts of Asset Allocation, Investment Strategy, and Psychology are summed up quite nicely in what I call “The Investor’s Creed“:

1. My intention is to be fully invested in accordance with my planned equity/fixed income asset allocation.

2. On the other hand, every security I own is for sale, and every security I own generates some form of cash flow that cannot be reinvested immediately.

3. I am happy when my cash position is nearly 0% because all of my money is then working as hard as it possibly can to meet my objectives.

4. But, I am ecstatic when my cash position approaches 100% because that means I’ve sold everything at a profit, and 

5. That I am in a position to take advantage of any new investment opportunities (that fit my guidelines) as soon as I become aware of them.

If you are managing your portfolio properly, your cash position has been rising lately, as you take profits on the securities you purchased when prices were falling just a few months ago… and (this is a big and) you could well be chock full of cash well before the market blows the whistle on its advance!

Yes, if you are going about the investment process properly, you will be swimming in cash at about the same time Wall Street discovers the rally and starts encouraging people to weight their portfolios more heavily into stocks; the number of IPOs coming to market starts to rise exponentially; morning drive radio DJ’s start to laugh about their stock market successes; and all of your friends start to talk about their new investment guru or the 30% gains in their growth Mutual Funds. What are you doing in cash!

This is what I call “smart” cash, because it represents realized profits, interest, and dividends that are just catching a breather on the bench after a scoring drive. As the gains compound at money market rates, the disciplined coach looks for sure signs of investor greed in the market place: fixed income prices fall as speculators abandon their long term goals and reach for the new investment stars that are sure to propel equity prices ever higher, boring investment grade equities fall in price as well because it's now clear [for the scadieighth (sic) time] that the market will never fall again… particularly NASDAQ, which could double and still not be where it was six years ago. And the beat goes on, cycle after cycle, generation after generation. What do you think; will today’s coaches be any smarter than those of the late nineties? Have they learned that it is the very strength of a rising market that proves to be its greatest weakness!