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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!)

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.

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.

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...

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 i...