Category Archives: Investing/Financial Planning

Fitch threatens more downgrades including the Symbolic Biggest bank, JPMorgan …. Not surprising, Interest Rates Move Up!

During the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 07-09 – (some ways seems like an eternity ago…others yesterday – ok, digressing again) Credit Conditions fell apart quickly and with little warning….

The big three Credit Agencies at the time and still today ….Moody’s, Fitch and S&P Global – then called S&P were late to the softening credit cycle and caught a tremendous amount of scrutiny for a lack of warning as Credit Conditions brought a tremendous amount of pressure to the Financial System…

In True Fooled me once like fashion, they are intent on NOT being late to the party this time.

Fitch Threatens Further Downgrades

With Fitch stepping into the credit Downgrade pool first followed quickly by Moody’s, Fitch is back again raising awareness with a symbolic threat to the largest bank in the US, JPMorgan…

Would not be surprised to see the lone silent Agency speak up soon, S&P Global, if for no other reason to save face in case there is a serious weakening….

Bond investors are taking the comments serious and repricing interest rates Higher/Bonds lower values to accommodate higher risk associate with the agency call.

Short term a little headwind on bond values… long term a HUGE advantage in the form of bigger coupons from our Safe Money – NICE!

Oh… Jerome Powell and the rest of his board members on the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) have their popcorn out as they happily watch this slowdown occur !

Have a Great “Higher Safe Money Rates” 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

Why you should Check that Social Security Statement – No Matter your age! Confirm you received credit for your payments/Earnings History!

Every year we post a reminder here to double check your Social Security Statement… Our reminder is triggered by the annual email from the SSA (Social Security Administration) reminding US to review our statement…. Well this year our email has come really late, as in years past it was in February…. Hey Better late than never!

Break In – We will let those currently receiving SS know the COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) when it occurs in about two months – after the CPI W for the quarter is calculated – Likely low single digits this year – Ok back to our regularly programming!

New font and back ground color here! yay

Why You Should Check your Social Statement? Confirm your Credits!

Unless you are already drawing Social Security, or unless you have no earnings, you should have a Social Security Account and should check it annually…

Here is the log in – Actual link (not hot linked) for security purposes – https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/ Only takes a few minutes to get your account set up!

Confirm your credits via your Earning History

Confirm you received credits for your hard earned money is very important, and easy…. here is what the screen shot look like – Below- oh, there are new drop downs for excellent help if your credits are not showing

In the event you have missing reporting, here is a screenshot of the contact information for the SSA – again once in side your SSA portal, it is fairly intuitive!

Have a Great “Social Security Earnings/Credit 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

Moody’s Credit Agency Jumps on Board and Downgrades 10 Banks along with “Keep an Eye Out” for More ….

Just Friday we mentioned Fitch Credit Agency Played Eye Spy and downgraded the USA credit worthiness by a very small amount from AAA to AA+…. the Eye Spy was due in part to the very large government spending acceleration number that showed up in the overzealous GDP print ….

Not to be outdone, a fellow credit agency, Moody’s chimed in as well

Moody’s Downgrades 10 Banks – Keep an eye on Others

As reported here by Reuters, Moody’s jumped into the pool and downgraded a slew of banks as well as put many on watch….

As mentioned in our post on the Fitch Downgrade, the US interest rates moved up after the ratings increase…. it would be expected all banks involved to see their standards tighten as well as their borrowing costs rise as well….

Why is this important you may ask?

This second rating decrease, by Moody’s will in effect help the FOMC in their pursuit of slowing the economy. Banks will broadly tighten lending standards!!

Have a Great “Moody’s Jumps into the Pool Downgrade” 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

Fitch Downgrade… On the way home… More Resident Pictures… Happy Friday …

In true “I Spy” like format — come on, you remember the funny kids game … anyway, Fitch Ratings Company played “I Spy” in the last GDP number,(was much larger than expected due to this) noting a large increase in government spending….. tossed a warning shot over the bow of the government in a small downgrade of US debt from AAA to AA+…. Not surprisingly that has pushed rates higher….FOR THE TIME BEING…

With the first Friday in August… and coming back from our “Sharpening of the Saw” Trip…. We will keep today short….

But we did want to say farewell to a few more residents ..this time four legged ones!

Happy Friday – Back in the Saddle next week – Talk then!

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

July 2023 Audio Video Review – RMD Reminder -AI – Cyber – FOMC on the Brakes – Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Hello and Welcome to our July 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!

BREAK IN – CLIENTS – Early RMD

July 2023 Video


YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

AI – Artificial Intelligence Update – Great but Not Saving the World

In this timely post (in our humble opinion – IMHO) we revisit the latest rage… AI – Artificial Intelligence – very similar to Dot.com in our opinion… So we try to clarify…

Oh… Here is a GREAT YouTube resource for explaining AI – Christopher Penn a Marketing Expert we have long followed

From the Post:

AI – Artificial Intelligence Today explained

Program assigns a number to all the words in the English Language – other languages too of course.

Cluster of huge computers located somewhere inexpensive scans everything it can get its eyes on, and tags the patterns of the numbers from the words it has scanned…

Not kidding, this is it!

Cyber Reminder –

They are at it again…. Watch out!

Capital Market Comments

Go Powell Go – Rates a 24 Year High – Both Feet On the Brakes!

Careful what we ask for….

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

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

Jerome Powell and FOMC On Deck to Raise Rates … They Really want the Economy to Slow …

To a man with a Hammer, everything looks like a nail…. or something like that…

Insert Interest rates for the Hammer!

Today the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) led by Jerome Powell will in all likelihood use their Hammer, raising rates… a 20 year chart below, to a 20 year high!

While mentioned frequently, we ARE fans of higher rates, but this has been a very fast move over a very short period of time… and certain portions of the Capital Markets/Stocks are acting as if rates are being lowered, ignoring these increases…

The future expectations/rhetoric of rate increases will be watched closely…..

Let’s give this some time to sink in boys!

Have a Great “Fed Rate Increase” 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

AI Explained in Simple Terms … Managing the Hype a bit … Conclusions from Explanation …

Whew … the fascination, hype (over hype), popularity and sexy coolness factor of Artificial Intelligence aka AI is astounding… Maybe getting over done here… Let’s bring this back down to Earth with the following simple Explanation ….

Heck, earlier this week, see below an AI Assistant popped up here on our WordPress blog platform…

Oh, by the way in less than 10 minutes ran this by the Mrs. and the graduating 18 year old, 15 year old techie was still asleep, and they got it … Hopefully can keep this short and simple here in words!

AI – Artificial Intelligence Today explained

Program assigns a number to all the words in the English Language – other languages too of course.

Cluster of huge computers located somewhere inexpensive scans everything it can get its eyes on, and tags the patterns of the numbers from the words it has scanned…

Not kidding, this is it!

Type in a question on an AI platform? Computer checks its numerical patterns from huge above, and gives you an answer!

Inferred Limitation

Original Content – By definition, it can only be a repeat of a pattern answer, nothing new and original, but put together parts from prior information…sure some may argue here… YES AI created this picture!

Huge Advantage

Repeatable, structured tasks… Think data entry, non creative programming, redundant tasks!

And that is it…. Wonderful possibilities, great time saver, will effect a lot of people, but hold on… Not going to solve all the worlds problems! Hoping for funny “Back to Earth” sarcasm here!

Have a Great “AI Explained” 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

Clients/Clients Only RMD (Required Minimum Distributions) Season comes early, Friday from Afar… Sharpening the Saw …

RMD’s Early this year

Being creatures of habit, (actually very rigid habit), we wanted to share a change in our regular scheduled programming this year regarding RMD – Required Minimum Distributions ….

Usually an October, November “Thing” this year we plan on doing most of the one timers next week… One timers are that large group that we make the distribution to meet Uncle Sam’s mandate only one solo transaction each year… New RMD folks we will be in touch too, but likely not next week!

Regularly RMD monthly distributors, no changes for us, all stays the same just like we normally do!

With the TDAmeritrade/Schwab Merger over Labor Day weekend, we thought it best to go ahead and take one more item off our plates before the end of the year run as well as the merger…

One last Hurrah – Saw Sharpening in a Cooler Climate with Friends and Family

With a Senior heading off to College and away from the nest… We are on one last trip before the school year begins…. A cooler climate was desired, and luckily found after a heat wave followed us…

Ahhhh…. today is a Friday, heading into a late July weekend… enjoy your day and your 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

Office Space Analysis – 1 Billion Feet (Wow) Empty Office Space and Kastle Back to Work Update …

Followers know we have been fascinated with the long term changes and effects from the lock down….

Virtual is the new Normal – Heck we have Zoom, Teams, GoToMeeting just to name a few, that we use constantly…

The following graphic is from our buds at Visual Capitalist – Note comments from the article after…

This from the article- with our highlights for emphasis

1 Billion Square Feet of Empty Office Space

In April, one of America’s largest office owners, Brookfield, defaulted on a $161 million loan.

The loan, covering 12 office buildings, was mainly concentrated in the Washington, D.C. market. Faced with low occupancy rates, it joined other office giants Blackstone and WeWork defaulting on office debt this year.

The above graphic shows nearly 1 billion square feet of empty office space in the U.S. based on data from JLL—and the wider implications of office towers standing empty.

Ranking U.S. Cities by Empty Office Space

At the end of the first quarter of 2023, a record 963 million square feet of office space was unoccupied in America. An estimated five to 10 office towers are at risk of defaulting each month according to Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp.

And one of our all time favorite trackers, Kastle

Have a Great “Office Space Updated” 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