Markets not happy

[Ban my account ffs!]

As I noted some time ago, the stock market is NOT a good investment under current financial circumstances.

I went with the Loonie (the Canadian Dollar) which has appreciated from approximately $0.78 US when Obama took office to approximately $1.02 US today.

Also recommend the Aussie (the Australian Dollar) which has appreciated from approximately $0.63 when Obama took office to approximately $1.05 US today.

Be careful.  The loonie was at like $1.05 in December 2007.  I sincerely doubt it will go much higher than it is at the moment.  While Canada and Australia are doing fairly well economically... they will not perform well if everybody else starts sinking.

[Ban my account ffs!]

How bad is the stock market expected to be on Monday? I can't see investors buying stock when we've been downgraded for the first time ever.

Anyone taking his money out of US treasury bonds because of that (not sure anybody is that touchy, but hey) would likely put it into something else, right?

A few institutions have it in there rules that they must keep there funds, or a portion of them, in AAA instruments.  They will be moving out of US bonds.  They won't be moving it to stocks.  Conversely, these institutions, might consider US bonds as a non-AAA alternative, and may move some of their "stock money" into US bonds, with could effect stocks.

That is one of the structural changes.

With only one of the three major rating firms having downgraded the US so far, I doubt we'll see a rush out of Treasuries because of rules.  Still, I expect T-bill yields will go up sharply Monday followed by some degree of bounce back. Even with a weekend to digest what S&P did, I expect an overcorrection.

S & P is still the one most everyone has heard about over the years.

On the whole, I still hold to my gold prediction, but I'd expect a spike in prices (followed by a roll back, though still higher).

I'm also worried about the possibility of Moody's and Fitch lowering the rating in a few weeks or months.

Nope.  You're wrong.

S&P and Moody's are the two largest bond rating agencies.  Finch is second to those two.  The rest don't matter.

I was only vaguely aware of S&P as a bond rating agency.  I was more aware of Moody's.  And given S&Ps track record in the past 4 years... if Moody's still keeps us at AAA, I'm not going to panic.  (I wouldn't panic if Moody's downgraded us to AA+ either).