Category Archives: Education

May 2023 Audio Video Review – Buffet/Munger Words of Wisdom, Debt Ceiling, – Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Hello and Welcome to our May 2023 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!

If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!

Newbies –

We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets thoughts and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

May 2023 Video –


YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

Berkshire Hathaway – Buffett Munger Words to Live By

In this post Charlie Munger and Warren Buffet are discussed in great details… along with a secret to speeding the time to listen (1.75x speed)…..

Main thoughts to live by from Charlie and Warren:

  • The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor.
  • If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens.
  • All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought:
    Early on, write your desired obituary – and then behave accordingly.
  • If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay
    irrational and get lousy results.
  • Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one
    thing for a long time is a huge advantage.
  • There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero.

Particularly added this as just last week, saw a review of the meeting that completely missed several of these points in my opinion.

Capital Market Comments

Debt Ceiling Fizzle- All done until after next elections

With several comments from the field, we spoke multiple times, here and here about the Debt Ceiling, the history and the most likely outcome…

Much of our confidence on the matter comes from our contacts that we have developed over the years that try to give us a 100% straight scoop as much as possible…. They could always be wrong, but being numbers folks, we go with the odds…

They were right, once again!

Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of June !

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

Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting, Buffet Munger Analysis, Thoughts, High Points, Words to Live by and be Successful According to them …

On May 5-6 of 2023, the Annual Shareholder Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway (BH) occurred… if you are not familiar with BH, here is a nice review from Wikipedia.

At 92 (Warren Buffett) and 99 (Charlie Munger) a 7 hour marathon where random, unscripted questions are answered in very good form (if we could all be so lucky) makes for great theatre and some what of a cult like experience…

Until just a few years ago, thanks in part to the lockdown years, BH meetings … while not secret, were behind closed doors and demanded in-person attendance, even if one had to sit in the hall outside of the actual area of the meeting and watch a live feed of the event… today as noted, earlier in our pre-view post not only can you access the event live, but also in replay with the ability to turn up the speed !

Personal High Points of Interest from the Sped Up meeting (Live by comments at end):

Neither man would rather live in a different country or location, even while there are of course, short comings,

Warren would not mind starting over today with nothing, to see if he could do it again, Charlie, not so much.

Charlie: China and the US should just get along, do business together and jointly prosper, rather than bowing up to each other for perceived dominance. Was Russia in the day, today China. (Large Applause)

Not withstanding point one, the bifurcation and hatred in society is disheartening, unproductive and destructive according to both men.

Buffet reversed course on a $5 billion investment in a semiconductor company located in Taiwan due to tension, location and likely provoking point three above.

100 Year Plan/Dream/Desire (question from audience) Buffet explains to operate a Company that compliments society, is good for society and has good people working for it. (Simple, fresh, positive!)

Vice: NetJets – Charlie still rides in coach, even on NJ – Expensive, but worth it according to Warren, especially on overseas extended trips.

Absolutely bash (and do not care for), Venture Capitalists and Private Equity guys at every chance and state that at the onset of most deals, they are already looking for the escape hatch/sale.

BH is actually too big to make agile, more aggressive and growth like investments, which prevents it from being a growth like company. (Reiterated for years now)

Management Skill recommendation – “Phrase by name, criticize by category!”

Live on less then you earn to keep stress down.

You do not have to be lucky to make it.

Be nice to people.

Get toxic people out of your life.

From the infamous Buffett Shareholder letter, released 2-25-23

  • The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor.
  • If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens.
  • All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought:
    Early on, write your desired obituary – and then behave accordingly.
  • If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay
    irrational and get lousy results.
  • Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one
    thing for a long time is a huge advantage.
  • There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero.

Remember, these are Warren and Charlie thoughts, only with a few comments and notes from us!

Have a Happy “Oracle of Omaha’s” 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

Kastle Back to Work… Stuck on Half Way! Effects beginning to be seen …

It has been a while since we previewed one of our favorite resources from the lock down. A chance article, below, rekindled our attention. We have added more observations.

Per the article:

A San Francisco office building was worth $300 million before the pandemic. Now, it could sell for only $60 million — a perfect example of why downtowns are in trouble

Kastle Systems Analysis and Barometer

Latest release

Publicly trade REIT – Real Estate Investment Trust – Actual Company withheld purposely (Public Venue) – Specializes in office space Assets

About a 75% drop in value. Not sure if the office headcount stays away, but certain office buildings are bearing the brunt!

Have a Great “Kastle Office Asset Analysis” 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

Advanced Analysis … Part 4 of More to come … Standard Deviation – Dust that Statistics Off !

OK so while maybe not a complete advanced topic it may be unfamiliar to many, so let’s code this Advanced Analysis as a refresher that we’re going to use in the future to build on.

Standard deviation

Below you will see a nice graph of a bell shaped curve that attempts to depict basically a broad estimate within a certainty of an outcome.

Said in a much simpler way and by example… on June 1st in Dallas TX … there’s a 95% chance that the temperature will be between 90 and 110, and on average over longer periods of time, this deviation will be somewhat normal… this makes the graph even on both sides.

The only reason that you want to know this is so that when the result we are measuring greatly varies from this temperature one can infer how unusual it is.

By M. W. Toews – Own work, based (in concept) on figure by Jeremy Kemp, on 2005-02-09, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1903871

Two standard deviations is the very most common and represents a probability of 95%!

There you have it .. likely the simplest advanced analysis topic that we’ve had and a refresher for many, but again this brings us up to date for some items that we can build on soon with more to come in advanced analysis topics

Have a Great “Standard Deviation Refresher/Advanced Analysis” 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

April 2023 Audio Video Review – Cyber Reminder, US Dollar Discussions, Chat GPT the modern .COM (Dot Com) – Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Hello and Welcome to our April 2023 Financial Planning and Capital Market Update!

If you are too busy to read, feel free to listen as we describe our post and thoughts in friendly podcast audio format as well as Video!

Newbies –

We like to articulate our thoughts and review on a Monthly basis our Financial Planning Tips, Capital Markets thoughts and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

April 2023 Video –


YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

Cyber – Fraud Reminder

In this post about cyber fraud and a reminder we point out where some 95% of all intrusions come from….

The trojan horse of clicking on a spam email!

Capital Market Comments

US Dollar Currency Status –

After hearing from four different directions …discussions of the US dollar and weaking in its status… the follow post was born

Likely overstated…but acknowledge there are surely effect from cutting a countries Swift code- (lifeline to wires)

True Foreigners, likely want a WEAKER US dollar – as its strength is not waning currently!

.COM and Chat GPT Comparisons

One of the neat things about staring so young in this industry and doing this for so long, is at a fairly young (this is subjective our course) age we get to recall and remanence about times of old….

…We all know what happened eventually, tons of .COM companies came public and expired in short order… BUT public companies learned by adding .COM to their name or services would drive the stock price up… many times in huge amounts…

.Com rhymes with Chat GPT – in almost every way…. but be sure to follow the revenues, not the narratives!

Have a Great Day, Talk to You at the End of April !

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

How Much to Tip? Restaurant, Transportation, Hotel … Personal funny notes …

Break In – Jogging season has arrived in full force … tend to be chatty after a long jog, especially in the cool weather… funny personal stories … warned!

With the “Tax Month” aka April, almost over, a monthly video review coming your way, and travel season nearing….

Our friends at Visual Capitalist came through with a three part graph that we just could not pass up…

Enjoy!

World Restaurants – How much to tip?

Funny personal story – while on a trip in one of the much lesser foreign tipping countries below….

Could not figure out why the great service at the bar …

Then bar tenders began fighting over our service as we rounded up, not only in a lesser tipping country, but a foreign misunderstood currency that was WAY too much… But … GREAT service for sure! ooops

Transportation – Taxi aka Lyft Uber

Another personal insight – The earlier or more unusual the time, the better the tip –

Running late and made it for sure a good tip (rare late arrival, but has happened)

Always a good tip, as any lost or left behind items seem to find its way back quickly – very frequent when the kids were younger!

Hotel Tips Protocol

As a family we try to always leave things nicer than the way we found them… especially in the individual owner world of Airbnb or VRBO —

Always leave a nice tip for everyone…again similar to transportation, the large numbers of power cords, video game accessories and “Unique” personal items that have made their way back more than compensate!

Told ya that jog makes for chatty! ha

Have a Great “Know Your Tip amount” 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

Reliving Memories of .COM Exuberance Time Period … Chat GPT and AI Comparisons … Recall History Really Rhymes!

In late 1999 heading into the infamously dud of Y2K … MANY including most financial companies were very concerned the clocks on computers would cause MASS outages- not kidding here – cannot make this up, even if it seems silly now! (Yes we were doing this back then… showing age – but all good!)

Wow a lot of stuff happened all at once, there was also an effect grabbed on to by many public companies called .COM …

We all know what happened eventually, tons of .COM companies came public and expired in short order… BUT public companies learned by adding .COM to their name or services would drive the stock price up… many times in huge amounts…

History Does Rhyme – .COM & Chat GPT

We are in no way saying AI and the afore mentioned Chat GPT is going away…. but where we see the rhyme… companies announcing some type of AI/CHAT GPT are finding novice investors may be rushing to their stock with ever greater enthusiasm… hmmmm

Revenues need to be associated with such services… just saying… great idea, neat tools… but very likely the “True Long Term Uses” are yet to be revealed…

Be Careful with the narratives – History does rhyme!

Have a Great “History Rhymes” 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

Nine Hours of Analysts – Family Announcement, College Bound.. Denver it is – Friday

While taking a bit of a breather this week… nine hours (three days of three one hour) comments from stately analysts were consumed…

Not to worry, we will not throw it all at you…but lots of notes, data points, economic information and really no big forecasts…. just observations and data… which makes it all the more interesting…

More to come for sure as we digest the fire hydrant of information!

Family Update – Denver it is!

While always respectful of the main line social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram etc…) and not wanting to get too close in similarity to them… We do like to share personal information occasionally and appreciate your comments and feedback…

The Eighteen year old (Sophia) committed to University of Denver (also known as DU- maybe I will figure that out eventually – as there were several others similar names that was of great interest- confused) this week…

With a nagging back injury, no tennis at this time… but maybe eventually, likely much less competitive…

Have a Happy Friday, Great 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

US Dollar Reserve Currency, Status and Comments by Ben Hunt, 20 Year Chart of US Dollar …

After a question at my Starbucks Saturday morning coffee buds, several inquiries from you guys in the field a Sunday morning e-mail from my well respected author … then lastly one of our favorites … a one hour podcast Ben Hunt on the Grant Williams podcast on the subject matter … we wanted to summarize some of the items that are occurring around the US dollars reserve currency status.

U.S. dollar Reserve Currency status 

Dramatic shift away from the US Dollar is likely very overstated…..

In our opinion much of this conversation can be traced back through the decision of locking down swift codes during the commencement of the most recent war. While an aggressive tactic some peripheral effects may have commenced.

Smaller countries that may be on the edge of friendships with certain nations most certainly took note when certain countries swift codes (prevents from moving money) were shut down barring them from transactions and from their own funds during the most recent conflict. Not surprisingly a protective move to diversify if one found itself in this own situation would be expected. 

Ben Hunt Chimes in on the Grant Williams Podcast…

  • Both Political Parties can find some power in the Narrative of a US Dollar Reserve issue
  • Crypto enthusiasts have a natural bias towards a loss in US Status
  • US Dollar is 90% of all transactions
  • These comments started 40 years ago and are still not true

US Dollar Chart

International folks understand the dollar itself has not shown much weakness – 20 year chart!

Depending on interest we can do into this in MUCH greater detail in the Newsletter… but until then, thought it worth some clarity!

Have a Great “US Dollar Strength and Longevity” 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

Fraud and Cyber Reminder – AGAIN – Where do over 95% of the intrusions come from?

This is REALLY important for all of us… take a few to read – will try to keep it as short and direct as possible !

Since last talking about this, a 4.5 hour (went faster than you may think) meeting was attended with experts from across the country on this subject….

Great notes, a thick booklet, and subject matter for us to visit on once again…

Key Points:

VAST number (>95%) of intrusions are from email – i.e. bad click, usually while in a hurry (guard down)

Thankfully the fraud is USUALLY not extremely technical – i.e. its a simple human slip up

Cell Phone Texts are no longer safe – Bad guys have figured them out

File Sharing programs are the best

Two Factor Authentication is the bomb – use as much as possible

Email take over and impersonation is the most common

USB or Pen External Drives are full of viruses

Ideas for staying safe:

Password of 15 characters – know that is long- Use a password phrase with a symbol for easy reference

Never EVER open or click on an unfamiliar email link – if important there is another way or repeated after confirmation

Never use Pen/USB External Drives – Heck we are disabling the ability to use them in our office computers – setting in Windows

Wow – this morning our local Newspaper runs a special from the FBI – DO NOT USE PUBLIC CHARGING STATIONS – Well guess the bad guys have found them too… Avoid all public locations!

We adapt and they adapt…but that is ok, just keeping this a bit top of mind should keep us all much safer!

Have a Great “Cyber 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