Category Archives: Retirement Planning

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, John Kvale, Personal, Retirement Planning, Tax Related

Tagged 401k Maximums, Holiday Party, RMD

Overzealous Spam Filter on New System … HUGE Social Security COLA … 5.9% to Be Exact, Wow…. COLA Pension Recipients Check Your Benchmark… Birthday Week – Jen and Donald Same Day Yesterday, Happy Birthday Guys … Friday Before Busy Virtual Conference Week

Posted on October 15, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Our summer project this year was to replace our server, update our office Wifi with greater speed and security as well as move our email system to a new more secure platform…

All this wonderful security and speed has led to an occasional overzealous spam filter…. we are validating all emails as safe, but the super sonic spam filter still grabs them every once in a while… please re-email us is you do not hear from us in short order… apologies for the accidental Ghosting, we thought we had this all fixed, but two instances in the last two weeks led to this announcement….

Big COLA Increases

Back in late July of this year, we warned here of possible GREAT news for Social Security and COLA Pension Recipients….

On Wednesday (10-13-21) the BLS (Bureau Of Labor Statistics) released the final month of the third quarter CPI-W which gave the average for the third quarter and is used to calculate the COLA (cost of living adjustment) for next year’s (2022) Social Security Benefits….

From this Release :

Fact Sheet SOCIAL SECURITY
Social Security National Press Office Baltimore, MD
2022 SOCIAL SECURITY CHANGES
Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA):
Based on the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) from the third quarter of 2020 through the third quarter of 2021, Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) beneficiaries will receive a 5.9 percent COLA for 2022.

Pension recipients, check that benchmark … you may have a nice surprise awaiting next year … YAY!

Birthday Week THE SAME EXACT DAY

Always try to do something unique for the office Birthday’s … but some how we ended up with two on the exact same day…. Wow… tough creativity all at once…

Happy Birthday Jen and DC the Brain… You guys are great!

Friday Before Full Week of Seminars and Welcome Learning

Today is a Friday and next week we have a full week of Virtual Seminars and Fantastic learning… Looking forward to it for sure… Will bring you any important details in short order…

Have a Great Weekend, Enjoy your Friday and Weekend!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

q-4-2021-newsletter Download

Posted in Donald Capone, Investing/Financial Planning, Jen Hill, Personal, Retirement Planning, Social Security

Tagged Birthday, Cola, CPI-W, Pension, Pension COLA, Social Security

Q4 2021 J.K. Financial, Inc. Newsletter … Video Audio Podcast Review ! By John Kvale CFA, CFP

Posted on September 29, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Click the Download button below, for a direct link to an electronic version (an early peek-good ole fashion paper versions are on their way to you shortly) and here for our Newsletter page

BREAK IN – We hope you see videos in the email notification, but if not, you may click on the code for the actual video…hence the dual videos, hoping one works on your cell!

Let’s get going! We hope you enjoy!

Q 4 2021 Newsletter

(YouTube)

Irrational Expectations

An article that just kept giving us more great information:

Kyle Bass Most Important Predictions

Oil hits $100 per barrel this year … due to mal investment over the last 7 years.
The Federal Reserve will continue to support the markets with continued purchases.
We push through the Delta Variant and there is a REAL re-opening effect that works its way through the economy

We hope you enjoy … talk to you at the beginning of the year !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

www.jkfinancialinc.com

www.street-cents.com

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, Newsletters, Podcast, Retirement Planning, Social Security, Video

Tagged FOMC, Kyle Bass, Market Expectations, Natixis, Natixis Investor Survey, Newsletter

August 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale

Posted on September 1, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our August 2021 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 and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

August 2021 Video

YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

Unemployment Fraud Alert

Multiple frauds occurring in continuous weeks, led us to write this post, reminding those that the fraudsters are still at it.

Their latest game…using stolen Socials and Employment information to gain unsuspecting employers Unemployment compensation.

While likely some accidentally fall through the cracks, we have yet to experience anything other than a mild inconvenience….

But do not let your guards down and if a victim, keep your eyes peeled for other items for the near term!

Child Tax Credit Confusion

After repeated confusion, here in this post we outline the new ADVANCED child tax credit payments than sneakily commenced several months ago…

Also a warning of an overworked IRS to keep line of sight to the funds in case we need to pay them back in the form of a higher tax bill when completing our 2021 Form 1040 Personal income tax return in April of 2022!

Capital Market Comments

Kyle Bass Forecasts

In this podcast derived post, we re-visit Kyle Bass again after a few year hiatus…

Here are his latest forecasts…. hopefully they come true

The Federal Reserve will continue to support the markets with continued purchases.
Federal Reserve feels responsible for Capital Markets … i.e. Every Federal Reserve member has a Bloomberg Investment terminal on their desk and post public talks, Fed members go back to their office to check the markets reactions to their comments.
Much more inflation than actually as printed by CPI – (Consumer Price Index) Example of car price increases up 300% over last thirty years, but CPI auto costs increased 5% over that period.
Cost of Food increases may cause social inequity problems.
Oil hits $100 per barrel this year … due to mal investment over the last 7 years.
Short term interest rates not to go higher than 1.5% and long term (10 year) rates will not go higher than 2.5%. i.e. Bernanke Helicopter speech outlines the difficulty in raising rates a lot once they are at a lowered level for some time.
We push through the Delta Variant and there is a REAL re-opening effect that works its way through the economy (Hope this is correct!)

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

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

From Business Insider here

Posted in Audio, Clients/Clients Only, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Retirement Planning, Tax Related, Video

Tagged Advanced Child Tax Credit, Child Tax, Child Tax Credit, Fraud, IRS, IRS Refunds, Kyle Bass, Unemployment Fraud, Unemployment Insurance

Continued Improvement in the US Economy … Monthly BLS Employment Report .. Unemployment Rate, Interest Rate Reaction

Posted on August 9, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

On Friday, August 6, 2021 the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) released the prior monthly (July 2021) employment related report. It is worth noting these are preliminary and will be adjusted in future months, but usually major adjustments are not in the picture….

Bottom Line:

943k hires in the month of July … NICE

5.4% Unemployment Rate as of July …Getting there (lower is better of course)

10 Year Treasuries Took note

BLS Unemployment Report for July 2021

The following Chart from the BLS may look unenthusiastic at first glance….. but hold on!

With the DRAMATIC volatility from the past year, the longer term chart does not give a true recent view…. Let’s look a little closer …. Much Better!

In much the same vein as above, the year view of the Unemployment rate does not look like a big deal as can be seen by the next chart!

On second thought, again with a closer view….. NICE! (We want a downward trending chart when measuring Unemployment)

10 Year Treasuries Wake Up

A measure of future expected growth, after some wrong sided players (shorting the 10 year in expectation of much higher rates faster) blew up pushing yields possibly incorrectly lower….

A hedge fund reportedly lost $1.5 billion in a bond market short-squeeze as bets on rising rates turned sour

These Good Economic Numbers put yields on the move higher (far right of chart)!

Continued improvement would likely force the FOMC to slow asset purchases…. as discussed here much desired by many !

Have a Great “Good Economic News” and analysis Monday!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

Posted in Economy, FOMC, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Retirement Planning

Tagged 10 Year Treasury, BLS, FOMC, Interest Rate, Interest Rates, Taper, Unemployment Rate, Unemployment Report

July (YIKES GOING FAST) 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale

Posted on August 2, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our July 2021 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 and current events!

Hope you enjoy!

July 2021 Video

YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

IRS Refunds and Tax Return Processing Very Delayed

In this Break In Post, after having discussions with several of you, and then touching our CPA contacts we came to the conclusion that the IRS is delayed in processing returns and more importantly REFUNDS!!!

Before we could get the news to you, this Yahoo Finance Article nicely summarizes that the IRS is behind on a whopping 20% of returns or over 30 million !

With a September 1, 2021 IRS stimulus check lookback (those who did not get the last round of stimulus will be reviewed by the IRS to see if they qualify) the IRS has their hands very full….

All together…. PATIENCE! They will eventually get to us!

Fingers Crossed For a Hot (Large) COLA Increase

Catching wind through our contacts of a possible HOT (read Large!) COLA adjustment this year for Social Security and possibly those lucky ones that have a COLA adjuster on their Pension or other retirement plan we dug in here in this post and outlined the methodology used by the SSA. The line in the sand for adjustment is later in the year but as can be seen by the latest CPI-W running at 6.1%, with a little luck, we may have a very nice adjustment on our hands!

Capital Market Comments

Valuations are Getting Better but Expectations are WAY out of Line!

In this post and with the help of our Friends at JPMorgan we happily reviewed the far right hand smartly turning graph, that is headed in the correct direction for better valuations… YAY

A bit later in the month we ran across a wonderful but somewhat worrisome poll done by Natixis of over 8000 investors and their expected return over the next 10 years…. Way off base in our minds….

Likely to see this last poll make its way into the Newsletter as these numbers are likely so exaggerated, we want more air time!

Ok…that’s a wrap for the July review….

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.

Posted in Audio, Clients/Clients Only, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Retirement Planning, Social Security, Tax Related, Video

Tagged Cola, Forward PE, Inflation, IRS, IRS Delays, IRS Refunds, JPMorgan, Natixis, Natixis Investor Survey, Pension COLA, Social Security COLA

Survey of Over 8000 Individual Investors Next 10 Year Investment Expectations – WRONG! – Natixis 2021 Survey

Posted on July 19, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

We recently ran across a very interesting survey. What caught our eye on this survey was the large number surveyed, 8550 individuals in over 24 countries, all with at least $100k of investments in Capital Markets.

The second item that caught our eyes, were some of the jaw dropping expectations of these investors. Thankfully, the survey is also given to professional investors and a neat comparison can easily be made!

Natixis Global Individual Investor Survey

Here in the 2021 Natixis Global Individual Investor Survey, some eye popping results caught our eye. As a side note there is a similar survey done with Institutional Survey as well.

The most recent survey found these collective individual investors expecting 13% returns over the next 10 years, ABOVE inflation….or a 14.5% total 10 year average!

We never make guarantee calls, as there are not any…. but we would find it EXTREMELY unlikely to meet these expectations. Not only that, but as you can see from the chart, the returns follow what we call “Rear View Mirror Forecasting” which is using the most recent past to forecast the future … rather than using true forecasting techniques.

Another concern arising from this information is with this expectation a possible under saving for the future and too low of risk expectations that may be inferred with these results.

Comparing the Individual versus the professional expectation of the next 10 years of returns, comes up with a very large variance.

Professional investors are expecting a much more reasonable 5.3% return. Clearly professionals are not using “Rear View Mirror Forecasting”

Individuals expect 13% over inflation for the next 10 years with Professionals expecting 5.3% – while we wish individuals are correct, it’s very unrealistic … Pro’s are likely much more accurate!

We will code this one Forecast and look back in 10 years to see who was closer! Yep a 10 year lookback….

Let the clock start ticking!

Have a Great “Individual versus Pros Expectation” Day!

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

Posted in Forecast, General Financial Planning, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Retirement Planning

Tagged Investor Survey, Natixis, Natixis Investor Survey, Survey

June 2021 Financial Planning and Capital Market Review – By John Kvale

Posted on June 30, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our June 2021 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 and current events!

BREAK IN – HOLIDAY PARTY NOVEMBER 20 FROM 3-5 AT DALLAS ATHLETIC CLUB

Hope you enjoy!

June 2021 Video

YouTube

Financial Planning Tip(s)

Why Not to Overfund a Retirement Plan

In this updated post from a few years ago, we remind how easily it is to overfund a 401k plan and why, while it is not the end of the world, it is not a good tax situation….

Should you accidentally over fund your retirement plan … what occurs is a double taxation!

You do not get the deduction for the contribution
You will likely pay taxes on the eventual distribution

Job change is the most likely reason for overfunding!

Pesky Late Arriving Tax Form Reminder – Form 5498

In this mid month post we remind those of an extra late arriving tax form….

Murphy’s law being applied, the form just arrived last week….about two weeks after our post…..

Reason for receipt:

Rollover of a 401k or the like to an IRA – Most frequent
Contribution to an IRA
Contribution to a SEP

One of the most confusing parts of this form is that even though you may have made a qualified contribution for a prior year i.e. 2020, if you made that contribution in 2021, depending on the type of contribution the Form 5498 MAY show your contribution in year 2021.

Capital Market Comments

Inflation or No Inflation

In this part two post, “The Smartest Guys in the Room” post we discussed via interest rate futures graphs the movement after FOMC dot plot adjustments and the interest rate markets….

This is an updated Graph of the 2 year US Treasury, which is holding lower, (higher yield) possibly due to faster expected rate increases!

This is the ultra long 30 Year Treasury, which continues to trend higher (lower Yield) possible pricing less inflation from the above mentioned expected shorter term rate increases!

Ok…that’s a wrap for the June review…. Hello July!

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

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

Q3 2021 J.K. Financial, Inc. Audio Newsletter Review By John Kvale Download

Posted in Audio, Clients/Clients Only, Economy, FOMC, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Retirement Planning, Why

Tagged 2 Year Treasury, 30 Year Treasury, 401k, FOMC, Form 5498, Inflation, Interest Rates

Q3 2021 J.K. Financial, Inc. Newsletter … Video Audio Podcast Review ! By John Kvale – New Post Format

Posted on June 28, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Click the Download button below, for a direct link to an electronic version (an early peek-good ole fashion paper versions are on their way to you shortly) and here for our Newsletter page

BREAK IN – Below is a new format for our Newsletter, hoping this pulls through on your Cell Email!

Q 3 2021 J.K. Financial Inc Newsletter Download

Let’s get going! We hope you enjoy!

Q 3 2021 Newsletter

(YouTube)

We hope you enjoy … talk to you in the Fall !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.

www.jkfinancialinc.com

www.street-cents.com

Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, Newsletters, Podcast, Retirement Planning, Social Security, Video

Tagged FOMC, Interest Rates, Jim Bianco, John Mauldin, Lacy Hunt, Newsletter, SIC Conference

The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Bond Markets and Participants – Part 2 of FOMC Dot Plot Update

Posted on June 23, 2021 by John Kvale CFA, CFP | Leave a comment

Part 2 of our overzealous post started Monday that was a bit too long- Enjoy!

There’s an old saying that the smartest guys in the room are the Bond Market or Bond Market Participants.

Bond market participants have way less to think about than their brotherin equity market participants, Basically bond participants only think of the economy, the credit worthiness and length of their investment.

Using the USA as your proxy and with the United States being the most credit worthy bond in the world, there is one less thing bond market participants have to worry about. Taking a peek at the 10-year US treasury yield which would reflect mostly economic expectation or possibly the future growth, of course there could be outside investors rushing to the US treasury market in search of higher yields boring the matter a bit, but all other things set aside under the surface post speech bond market investors are expecting greater controlled economic growth, sooner (2 year Movement.)

Dramatic Movement in the 2 Year Treasury

In order to get a most up to date chart, we needed to use futures contracts, so bear with us, as the chart goes down the yield is rising… bond guys are pricing higher rates now!

Here is a close up of the latest few days, again on the 2 Year

Not surprisingly a bit of a come back (higher prices lower yield) in the chart after such a large move.

30 Year Movement

Same use of futures contract here…

Higher chart price is lower yield? The initial drop is in the February March 2021 time frame as the Economy began to open, but take note of the move UP – lower yields in the last few weeks!

This may seem counter intuitive, but the eventual increase in rates would thwart inflation and is being expressed by lower long term rates…

We’ve talked at length on inflation versus deflation, so will leave it alone at this time but it might be noted that’s the smartest guys in the room thank future economic growth is at least higher and longer term inflation is not their concern, at least for now!

Have a Great “FOMC – Smartest Guys In the Room Review” Day!

John A Kvale CFA, CFP

Founder of J.K. Financial, Inc.

A Dallas Texas based fee only

Financial Planning Total Wealth

Management firm.