Updated Blog Site – Zoom Zoom – Nice – Had to anyway … Friday – Newsletter Complete ….

College Trips Begin

With a turn around College viewing trip exactly mid week – the lack of sleep, fatigue from an early out late back, six hours of college program listening and walking will be nice to extinguish this weekend… thankfully…

Fun Fact – “Dad, are you tired. because I sure am? So is this what your business meeting trips are like?” Yes, tired for sure! A bit of reality? haha – College Viewing List may be shorter…all good!

Blog Update – Zoom Zoom

Here at street-cents.com our blog has been updated to a “Business” platform … faster, more features (need to figure them out) and more viewing and character formats…. Ok… sounds all cool BUT, we had to as we were pushing the boundaries of our space from the videos and large content….

Would have never believed there were over 2000 – yep – TWO THOUSAND posts to send to you guys…. All are not serious, but all are original… spelling and grammatical mistakes inclusive…haha Thanks for your continued readership and especially the comment!

Who Let the Newsletter Out!

Speaking of writing, articles, posts and grammar…. Our editor did see the post last week of no verbiage on the Newsletter, and sent an email as such…. Prompting a quick continuance of the afore mentioned missing verbiage …. ITS DONE!

Never know how much you guys will like the Newsletter, always a happy surprise — but we can say we have gone to a much avoided subject matter that we will speak very little about in this public venue – you guys can read in the comforts of your home in paper novelty format…. hope you enjoy!

Have a Great Friday and Weekend – Talk Next Week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Green Light on Taxes – Corrected 1099 Out – You Lucky One have already been contacted!

We are in receipt of our Corrected Tax Form (1099) and we are happy to report a total of 1 … yep only a solo….. lucky family and you have already been contacted.

This does not mean we cannot have another as there are four more corrected rounds before completion. BUT, over the last years we have found the first run gives us a good idea of the expected future.

As a point of reference we have had years when the first round was nearing triple digits, just to put the solo reported in context. Stranger things have happened, but we are most likely in the clear!

Have a Great “Corrected Tax Form” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Fed Week, Tough Decisions … New “Happy Bank” Back Stop Facility – The BTFP – Bank Term Funding Loan Program … Bank Headlines Continue – Reminder Thought On Late Cycle Headlines …

A while back we mentioned the FOMC – Federal Open Market Committee, lead by Jerome Powell were in a Pickle .. as at that time one of their regional banks had a research report out that GDP- Gross Domestic Production -Economic Growth indicator – was dropping fast and they were going to raise interest rates against a hot CPI = Consumer Price Index – blunt inflation gauge which would exacerbate the situation.

Fast forward to today and that Pickle is not any better…. maybe even more dill! With the afore mentioned Part 1 Advance Analysis M2 review showing dramatically dropping or the pulling of liquidity out of the system, bank fatigue has been seen and felt and here our comments on Banks being a slave to confidence for solvency.

On Wednesday of this week, March 22. 2023 the FOMC is bound by their goal of slowing that sticky inflation we are all seeing, especially at the grocery store, and best measured by the CPI … BUT, this additional rate increase will add fuel to the fire of less liquidity, AND on top of that our neighbors across the pond just raised rates .50% last week, albeit from a much lower 3.00 to 3.50% rate….currently the US rate is 4.75% …

We did say Pickle ? Right….

Enter the BTFP – Bank Term Funding Loan Program – Happy Bank Program

On March 12, 2023 the Federal Reserve Created the BTFP as another backstop for possible Bank Fatigue ..

Press Release

March 12, 2023

Federal Reserve Board announces it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors

For release at 6:15 p.m. EDT

This new program is a sort of Fed Discount Window on Steroids, meant to improve Bank confidence.

Quick History

Long ago the FED (going back in loose form to the 1920’s – the start of the Fed) started a program for Bank help during stressful times, the Fed Discount Window –

Fed Discount Window –

  • Operation of last resort for a bank
  • Overnight deposit help
  • Anonymous for two years
  • 30 day length, but historically has been lengthened to 90 days
  • Pledge of assets for security – Treasury Securities of all Maturity among other items that are held at par (even value, no gain or loss) or better

BTFP – Bank Term Funding Loan Program

All of the above but the following additions:

  • On Year in Length maximum holding period
  • Pledge of asset securities that may be less than par aka at a loss

The last bullet is the most important and lending a helpful hand from the Fed’s fastest in history rate increase…. as mentioned repeatedly, increase of rates are a headwind to Fixed income aka Bonds, especially longer term bonds….

Some Banks may be seeing a need for immediate liquidity due to loss of confidence and liquidity drain, so this new program essentially gives them liquidity to meet those demands if needed and may have negative assets due to the fast fast rate increases!

Headlines Continue

While this is being written – Sunday late morning in between Newsletter Articles, UBS a Swiss neighbor of Credit Suisse has made a much telegraphed offer to buy their friend out… no idea what the market will make of this starting tonight as overseas markets open…. but something just crossed the mind that we have mentioned many times before…. and may be applicable….

“Headlines are always the worst near the end of the Cycle!”

Have a Great “Heads Up for a Busy Week” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Important One Year Anniversary? … Technology Tethered Modern Day Spring Break Concludes… Newsletter Subjects and Neat Graphs but very little content YET … Friday On the Way Back Home soon!

Happy Anniversary Yesterday – Of What?

Long time followers will find this hard to believe ….. but it is true..

What was an important 1 year anniversary as of yesterday?

You’ve got this… but it is not easy…??

The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) commenced their FIRST rate increase one year ago, yesterday!

The important part of this is the lag affect … the US Economy is like an aircraft carrier, not a ski boat in that it changes directions SLOWLY! More on this soon… hey it is a Friday… let’s carry on! But worth thinking about …

Modern Day Spring Break

Tomorrow we head back… it was a super fun Spring Break, and in some ways work “Stuff” was even more productive…

Always glad to be available …. heck it’s never “Work” anyway!

Thanks to technology (note battery charger for cell in pic, no plug in this courtyard), the events of the last week were digested or maybe consumed is a better word… and as mentioned in the Mid-Week Wednesday post, were not completely surprising…

More to come as needed in this area!

Newsletter in Motion

The goal was to have the Newsletter complete, but the afore mentioned events took over and while much of the diagnostic graphs have been completed … the verbiage is not … hope my editor, who likes to get a head start does not see this…. oh well…

Have a Great Friday … Super Weekend and talk next week from the regular Saddle!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Banking is all about Confidence … Experienced Reminders and Hat Tip Advanced Analysis Part 2 the M2 Money Supply!

We will leave the drama headlines for other sources, as there are of course many that will come from the recent West Coast Bank Failure….

Being our second major Rodeo on this one, the Great Financial Crisis (aka GFC) of 07-09 the first, we are reminded of several things – This is NOT the 07-09 Crisis – Don’t go there

Here are some observations:

  • Risk happens slowly, then all at once (money moves faster than 15 years ago too!)
  • Fears may jump from one to the next during problem times- quickly
  • Events rarely repeat (lightening strike same place twice) but they sure do rhyme
  • It takes a long time for events to play out, not withstanding our first point (this is likely not over)
  • Banking is all about confidence … oddly most recently a storm in the south caused a loss of confidence in gas inventory in our neck of the woods… within hours all gas stations were out of gas! Sound Familiar?

Advanced Analysis Replay – Pat ourselves on the Back Here

Part 2 of our Advanced Analysis – Recall and Reminder – The M2 Discussion

M2 Turns Negative for the First Time and that’s a Long Time!

Posted on January 18, 2023 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

There are tons of measuring sticks out there…. almost all of which we look at and follow, at least at one time or another…..

What grabs our attention is when the measuring sticks do unique things….or have never happened before!

Why are we watching this?

This draw down of money in the system may put pressure on certain risky players i.e. Companies that use Junk or High Yield Debt!

Closing Thoughts:

We mostly stay away from these “HOT” or maybe even Negative topics, but wanted to let you know we watch this, have spoken in advance of some of the risks, and are using past experience to help guide and monitor the situation!

Have a Great “Experience Matters” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Sudden Increase in Spam both email and text…. Reminder to complete those patches! 18 examples recorded in less than two weeks for your viewing! Do not Bite on a Spam Email/Text Could Be Hazardous!

The following is another reason to make sure your patches are being installed, both from the hardware, such as the maker of your phone, or other device, and software standpoint. Not doing your updates may subject you to more continued spam, and one slip up could cause much greater problems…

Have you experienced a sudden increase in email or text spams? If not consider yourself lucky, but not necessarily out of the woods yet!

About two weeks ago an email spam increase seem to occur. Luckily and just by chance a decision to start taking snapshots of the email spams was made as multiple emails occurred from a regular go to flight provider located here in Dallas, Southwest!

Counter Action Problems Better than the Alternative

With an electronic fax delivery system and email delivery of this post being blocked, the largest providers, most notably, Microsoft have taken note and attempted to raise the gates. This increase in their spam filters, garners unintended consequences such as a loss of the route delivery of the aforementioned items. In our case, our IT department re-issued safe acceptance of our key items, and we were back in business.

Think to yourself if you are missing a regular contact from something, your provider may have blocked while trying to attempt coverage of this new Spam attack!

Examples of the last two weeks record keeping! Do not bite!

The Golf Cart is my favorite and most clever… Not sure where the Ace Hardware came from!

Have a Great Spam Update Reminder Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Friday Office Hours, Out but Tethered …Time Change Weekend … Spring Break … Punxsutawney Phil Spring Tree Update … Spam/Cyber Preview – Look Out they are Back!

As mentioned last Friday … with the kids completely out today, for the betterment and the safety of the streets, we are out today as well … officially starting our spring break a bit early as next week IS spring break, and we will be out of the office all week next week …. but tethered electronically as always!

Time Change Weekend!

One of our favorite days of the year occurs this weekend, the time change. Don’t forget to change whatever few clocks you may have that do not automatically change Saturday night as that leads to an irregular time read and unnecessary stress usually occurring when we’re in a hurry of course….at least in my experience!

Snapped less than 24 Hours Ago – Spring Tree

Thank you for the Spring Tree Comments…. you have personally spurred us to continue the tracking… although we are likely nearing the end of our journey… Hence the bigger picture!

The following Punxsutawney Phil Spring Tree update was snapped (used same camera and same location for better reference) less than 24 hours ago …

Now we are cooking… Hello Spring … at least in Texas!

Closing Break Reflections and Personal Thoughts

For some reason being out of the office brings clarity….

Maybe it is the slow Wifi or maybe just different location/surrounding….

No matter… we are happily “Lightly” Tethered… the keyboard is tapping with residual to do’s/Newsletter/Blog posts… speaking of which, a great Cyber related post coming Monday… worth your time… and yes, really enjoy doing this over time off…. never work!

Have a Great Friday/Weekend and if Your Spring Break… that too… Talk Next Week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Spring Break Coming, Timely Travel Tips … Rental Car Trick/Tip … Getting a Bigger Ride Cheaper? Making sure your Fast Pass Car is there! Yikes

One of the most frustrating things for traveling, at least on this end … is the dreaded Car Rental check in line…

In late 2019, a nice lady at the nationally known Car rental place in an airport that I had frequented literally three times in four weeks looked at me with recognition and a smile as said the following

“Sir, take the 5-10 minutes to pre-check electronically by creating an account and if you have a corporate account all the better, add your information, Credit Card and desired parameters and while I will miss seeing you, your car keys will be in the car and you can just walk to the car and be on your way!”

Like many of you, the funny “Fast Check In” commercials had resonated through my head, but given an employee telling me to do this, the sign up was on…. Not only was the sign up on, but two major companies were added (not all national car companies are available in all locations, but with the two I have yet to not be able to find a car) AND, both companies were added via a corporate account, which took some time to validate and prove, but has definitely saved additional cost, not to mention the time…

Literally, the next trip to the repeated airport, a waive to the nice lady at the check in garnered a smile, a thumbs up from my perch and a nice “Told You So” wave from her as the line was at least an hour long with some type of huge group all checking in at the same time…. NICE!

Important Note: Doing Fast Check sets an expected time of arrival, if your flight is late, let the company know… if you are too late, your car will be gone… personal experience on this one!

Savings Tip: Don’t just take the first suggested “Match Box” car when reserving … frequently larger, full size or even luxury cars may be cheaper if there is an abundance of inventory.. BUT you must scroll down to the bottom of the page and even to a second or third page… yes you will pass some very expensive rentals, but there may be a gold nugget in there somewhere too!

Had planned on also repeating the favorite travel organizer app…but this post, like some may say of my video’s or in person meetings … ran long.. ha

Have a Great “Rental Car Pro” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

DALL – E – 2 from Open AI (Artificial Intelligence) – Copyright Free Art/Pictures/Images Created by You or Me! … Examples …

We have spoken about this before, but in brevity….and the popularity of this is rising so fast, we can hardly keep up ….

ChatGPT is all the rage at the moment, and we spoke of it here, again in brevity….

This is making its’ way into our coming Newsletter in greater detail…. But let’s start from the beginnings of our experience and show you just a few of our creations…

Dall-E-2 – the Image portion from Open AI

With Copyright issues abounding, we happily stumbled into DALL-E-2 named somewhat from the Pixar Movie WALL-E and Salvador Dali the artist… The whole family has accounts and all enjoy creating images… in fact, here are just a few images we have been using here…. once again all created by us ….

Oh, and those unfamiliar with the process … you type a literal sentence or phrase of what you want it to create and BOOM you get an AI created picture…

“Uncle Sam Beach Bum” created this and was used in a post where we spoke of Tax time not here yet….

Here are a few more…again all used here in our blog…VERY HAPPILY

We will dive deeper into CHATGPT next…but hope this helps give you a 10000 foot overview and will let you know what people are talking about when this terminology is mentioned!

Have a Great “DALL-E-2” Informed Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents

Tax Forms Update – They are all Completed – Yay – Let the Corrected Clock Tick … Personal Fun Longevity Experience while Walking into the Building … Friday … Back Yard Punxsutawney Phil Tree Update …

Tax Forms Update

Ya ya… lot’s about Tax “Stuff” this time of the year year, but tis the season…. So some good news here!

This week all forms dropped for everyone… a lot had already been completed, but there were still a fair amount that had not been completed…..

If you have not received your form and need it, let us know as we have quick electronic access and can email it to you…. Most importantly, now the Corrected clock starts ticking… We will be in touch!

Personal Longevity Experience

Early this week while entering my building a nice elderly couple, led by the husband with a stroller mentioned they were moving slowly …. as I held the door with absolute pleasure to do so, I said not to worry, my father is happily 95 years old …. and we all move a bit slower as we luckily make those notches in our belts…

Surprisingly, the nice lady just behind the couple bellows… “My mom just turned 100 ..So I am in no hurry, just take your time!”

Still holding the door … the gentleman behind her yells “My dad is 87, you take your time sir … and enjoy the day and no problem!”

Couple of things to take from this experience….

  • What a great way to start the day …
  • Many are living longer …
  • Break the silence when you can … I think all parties involved also had a super start to their day!

Punxsutawney Phil Backyard Tree Update

Can you tell we are ready for spring to arrive? HA

Break In: Wow did we have a bad storm come through last night… 90 mph winds in some places … hope all close are ok!

By the way, Spring Break is two weeks out AND the time changes next week… a favorite day!

So how is our Punxsutawney Phil Tree doing? This picture is literally hours hold from the time you received the update…..

Notice the change? Here we go… with two weeks away, the next update should be interesting!

Have a Great Friday and a super weekend, next week is a one day early shortened “Work” week due to kids free day due to weather day make up Friday and the following is a tethered technology Spring Break week…but that is two weeks away.. enjoy your weekend and talk next week!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

jkfinancialinc

street-cents