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☕ DrinkCoffeeAndProfit
Smart money moves before breakfast
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Inspiration Quote for the Day
“An approximate answer to the right question is worth far more than a precise answer to the wrong one.”
John Tukey
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The Morning Ritual
Maureen’s Raise Is Being Measured This Week, on Somebody Else’s Shopping
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A friend of mine spent September doing what she does every September. Maureen waited. Her Social Security raise for next year is being calculated right now, and the last piece of it lands on October `14`.
Few people receiving that raise know whose prices decide it.
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· · · Partner Message · · ·
Doroni has already flight-tested its prototypes. Now the company has reserved the Nasdaq ticker $DRNI, marking another step toward a potential public-market debut.
At this stage, $DRNI is a ticker reservation, not a listing. Still, it comes on top of tangible progress: more than 70 test flights across the prototype program, 600+ pre-orders, and over $35M raised to date.
Doroni shares are currently available at $3.30 through its Regulation A round. For a limited time, investors can receive up to 20% bonus shares.
A ticker reservation does not guarantee a Nasdaq listing, which remains subject to approval. This is a speculative, illiquid early-stage offering, and investors could lose their entire investment. Read the offering circular before investing.
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In One Sip
► The `2027` raise is the average of July, August and September prices against the same three months a year earlier. Source: Social Security Administration.
► It is announced on October `14`, right after the September figure is published. Source: SSA and Bureau of Labor Statistics.
► The index used is the one for urban wage earners and clerical workers, not for people over `62`. Source: Social Security Administration.
► Last year’s raise was `2.8%`. One widely quoted estimate for next year is `3.5%`, and it stays an estimate until the `14th`. Source: Senior Citizens League, September `2026`.
► The quiet part: the standard Medicare Part B premium is projected at `$209.50` for `2027`. That is about `$6.60` a month more, taken from the same cheque. Source: `2026` Medicare Trustees Report.
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Why It Matters for Your Money
Run it on a real cheque. A `$2,083` monthly benefit at `3.5%` gains about `$72.91`. That is the number the headlines will print.
Then the premium comes out. If Part B rises by the projected `$6.60`, what actually lands is closer to `$66`. The raise is real. It is just smaller than the percentage suggests.
Now the basket. The index behind the calculation tracks what working households buy, weighted toward petrol and commuting. A retired household buys a different mix, heavier on medical care and housing.
So the raise is set by other people’s shopping, and the deduction is set by a programme announced a month later. Two decisions, neither of them yours, on the same line of the same cheque.
One more piece of timing. The personalised notice with your own new figure arrives in December, after both numbers are known.
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· · · Partner Message · · ·
Trump’s Federal Reserve has made a change that could give prepared investors the chance to make rapid gains… While everyone else is still trying to work out what happened.
According to hedge fund legend Larry Benedict, one ticker sits directly in the path of these faster, less predictable moves.
Since taking charge in May, Kevin Warsh has stopped signaling what the Fed is likely to do next. He has dropped its “forward guidance”… Shortened its policy statements… And even raised the possibility of holding fewer rate-setting meetings.
The effect has already been felt.
Reuters says Warsh’s first Fed meeting “blindsided traders” and forced markets to rapidly rethink where interest rates were heading. Wall Street fears less warning could mean sharper market swings. Larry Benedict sees the opportunity to profit from them.
Larry has spent 40 years trading around Fed decisions and generated $274 million for his hedge fund clients. Now he is revealing exactly where he plans to position before the Fed’s next decision on October 27. And he’s giving away the ticker completely free.
This is an advertisement.
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The Wealth Angle
Two things can be true. Tying the raise to a published index beats leaving it to a yearly vote, which is how it worked before `1975`. The index still measures a household that is not yours.
This is the same shape as a lot of household money. A number gets set somewhere else, on somebody else’s inputs, and arrives as a line you can read but not argue with.
What I do with it is narrow. I treat the announced percentage as news and the December notice as the number, and I plan on the December one.
The gap between those two is where the surprise lives. It is also the only part of this that is knowable in advance, because the premium projection is already published.
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☕ Key Insight:
The raise is announced as a percentage in October and delivered as a dollar figure in December. Those two numbers are not the same, and the difference has already been printed in a government report.
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· · · Partner Message · · ·
This is an advertisement.
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Coffee Break Move
If you are comfortable: Take your current monthly benefit and multiply it by `3.5%`. Write that figure down, then subtract `$6.60`. Keep the paper until December and compare it with the notice. Planning on the second number costs nothing and removes the January surprise.
If you are stretched: Check that your my Social Security account has the right address and email. The December notice goes there first. Then ask your plan what your own Part B deduction will be, since the standard premium is not what everybody pays.
Maureen will get her letter in December like everyone else. The arithmetic that produced it has been running since July, and none of it was ever a secret.
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