For Investors, the Business of America Is Still Business

“The chief business of the American people is business.” That declaration by Calvin Coolidge has been shortened and simplified since that Republican president uttered it before an assembly of newspaper editors a century ago.But the notion that the business of America is business was on conspicuous display at President Trump’s inauguration.It may be the chief reason for heightened optimism about the stock and bond markets.Plenty of worried readers have been writing in — asking how, in broad strokes, they ought to deploy their money during the second Trump presidency.

It is both a pressing problem and an eternal quandary, one that, in investing jargon, is labeled asset allocation.How do you divide up your money to get the most reward for the least risk? The new administration is presenting investors with outsize rewards and monumental risks right from the start.Certainly, the Trump inauguration is conveying conflicting messages and meanings.

In his long formal inauguration speech in the Capitol Rotunda and then in a stream of well-publicized remarks as well as a flurry of executive orders, Mr.Trump has touched on many of his favorite and most contentious subjects.They include declarations of two states of emergency, enabling the deployment of the military for mass deportations and bolstering presidential authority to promote fossil fuels.

President Trump also promised to impose tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada and Europe; seize the Panama Canal; buy Greenland from Denmark; place an American flag on Mars; and, generally, fulfill America’s “manifest destiny.”Depending on your personal politics, these initiatives may seem profoundly unsettling — or refreshingly disruptive.But in Mr.

Trump’s meandering pronouncements, one thread was clear and consistent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and lo...