The prices of gold and silver, alongside Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, as well as many non-US dollar currencies, have fallen sharply in recent months, with some investors facing much lower financial year returns as a result.

Bitcoin has lost more than half of its value from last year’s peak over $US126,000. Ether, Solana and Cardano have fared even worse. Ether is now trading at one-third its level of late last year. Institutional money isn’t as enthusiastic for the asset class.

Silver has also halved from its record above $US121 an ounce while gold has plunged nearly 30 per cent from its all-time high of around $US5600 an ounce.

The common tipping point for precious metals and cryptos was the appointment of US Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh. He was considered to be a hawk on inflation, a view which has subsequently been confirmed. Rather than the Fed getting a Trump nominee that would cut interest rates, the conversation quickly shifted to when would the US lift interest rates.

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Greed-o-meter

Okay, it's not exactly business news - but there's something slightly nostalgic about today's table.

Fear & Greed Q+A today

On the mistakes we make on our tax returns, the deductions that catch people out, and how the ATO helps small businesses through a time of changing tax rates and super rules:

 

“The ATO's primary aim is to support small businesses to get it right rather than focusing on the consequences of getting it wrong.

 

For things like Payday Super, we're particularly focused on making sure businesses that need support have everything in place. We're not going to be focusing on businesses that are taking genuine steps to make sure they're paying super on payday.

 

If you make a mistake after that and fix it as soon as you can, that's not something we're going to focus on in this first year.

 

As much as possible, we want to make sure the right advice and guidance is available so businesses can limit mistakes and understand their obligations."

News in brief

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Labor’s new legislation to overhaul gambling advertising will make an enormous difference to harm minimisation.

The fund set up to compensate victims of financial misconduct is facing a blowout in costs after accounting for the first tranche of claims from the Shield and First Guardian collapses.

Perpetual said its board had rejected a $2.5 billion bid from Swedish PE giant EQT, even though the offer is a 40 per cent premium to Tuesday’s closing price.

OpenAI has discussed giving a 5 per cent stake to the US government, as the $US852 billion AI company seeks to clear political obstacles by securing financial buy-in from the Trump administration.

Ford Motor Company has taken an unusually human approach to fixing its quality problems – it has brought back what it calls “grey beard” engineers to help train younger staff and to reprogram the artificial intelligence tools that weren’t getting the job done.

Fear-o-meter

The Super Members Council on the CSLR:

The revised estimate of this year's skyrocketing bill for the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR) confirms the scheme is now being flooded by a surge in unpaid compensation orders from a string of recent financial advice and managed investment scheme failures.

The scale of the new forecast once again highlights the utmost urgency for the Government to legislate its interlocking consumer safety reforms to stop devastating losses like these in the first place.

"A tsunami of unpaid compensation orders is now flooding the scheme,” said Super Members Council CEO Misha Schubert. “This highlights the absolute urgency of the need for stronger laws to protect consumers from these types of devastating harms in the first place, and an equally urgent need to enable super funds to deliver more safe, trusted financial advice to their own members.”

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