Not sure on the saying, but goes something like ….
Two birds with one stone!
No no, more like this ….
Have Your Cake and Eat it too!
No, how about this ….
Twofer!
Oh ….goodness….
Two For One ?
As a small happily high touch firm, it would not work without you!
Happy Birthday Jen and Donald
Yep, both are on the same day – TODAY!
Cheers and thanks for everything, you guys are GREAT!
John A. Kvale
Posted in Clients/Clients Only, Donald Capone, Jen Hill, Personal
Tagged Birthday, Donald Capone III CFA, Jen Hill
Mid-week, we (DC and I) travel to the West Coast for an annual gathering of thousands of our peers, along with consultants, asset firms, and as many technology firms that you could shake a stick at…. with a new cell phone (and more importantly camera and battery), twitter followers ( @johnkvale ) can check some pictures that will be posted – and of course we will have items here as well… hopefully later this week….
Technology allows great things as most everyone knows. Over the last several decades, the Financial Planning and Portfolio Management process has adopted technology… as has our firm.
Originally the seemingly unstoppable power of Excel continued to improve speed, make for greater accuracy, and ever detailed specifications.
As a firm, we gravitated from the powers of Excel (Once upon a time this was done with pencil and paper – we know some that still do it this way today!) on to a heavy server burdening system, then on to a slightly lighter in house/on-line system, finally to the web based/full on-line systems (each time with much heartache and heartburn.)
Enter Donald “The Brain“
With an almost from scratch to modern day software background as mentioned above – Excel to server/web/cloud systems, Donald, who has always been in charge of this, immediately understood the challenges, necessary views, and possibilities when an all-new, completely cloud based on-line system became available.
As a Beta tester, and later almost a technology consultant (offered up enhancements that were eagerly accepted) Donald has been a go-to person for our modern day software and the firm that created it!
In the spirit of helping as many as possible, Donald will be on panels during the annual conference this week helping fellow advisors understand the power, simplicity, accuracy and productivity enhancements that we utilize, much to our software providers pleasure.
It is a great honor to be asked to do this before thousands of your peers- Well Done DC!
We know what your thinking … big party that you get to write off the expenses? Once upon a time many years ago – maybe! NOT TODAY – showing our age I guess…haha
Today, we have a working list of items to review with various providers (all of the team has been gathering wish lists and needed understanding items for the last month from each perspective), multiple meetings as soon as we hit the ground, specific questions from you guys/clients in the field on certain subject matters, as well as a full schedule of planned viewing of panels of others, that we are not specialists in!
Several years ago, while solo and a morning of too much coffee, multiple new items were agreed upon and contracts signed ( i.e. New Web site provider, other tech services). Upon return, the gang was NOT happy (sorry guys) as we tried to digest everything over the next several months… we have learned to keep things bite size, but we will certainly stay informed!
Look for an informative post on Wednesday as we travel, then likely a brief post of Friday as we make our way back home, with frequent twitter posts and likely a deluge of posts here once we get our feet back on the ground …. stay tuned – Can you tell we are excited and ready to go?
Have a Great “Inform and get informed” Day/Week!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
On October 11, 2018 a new member of the Capone Family was born …
Congratulations to Randi and Donald —
Great Parents, Great Family, Great sibling relationships – as you can tell from the picture.
Told ya it was BIGGER NEWS – doesn’t get any bigger …
We hope to get a glimpse at the Holiday Party – no promises, baby stuff happens and that is a quick public showing —
Very happy to announce, Randi and Donald (spoken to The Brain several times) seem great, well rested, home from the hospital, and of course super parents….
Have a Great “New Family Member” Day!
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Posted in Clients/Clients Only, Donald Capone, Personal
Note the * asterisk by the 15 years… it’s really 19 YEARS ! …. Including part time school work.
Congratulations to Donald “The Brain” on his 15 year anniversary.
From an early start while working during the summers driving 30 miles each way, to trudging through the well documented EXTREMELY difficult CFA exam, to helping everyone through the the Great Recession of 07-09 ….
Well done and congrats. Hopefully the next 15 will go a little slower! Doubtful !!
The Monday technology upgrade turned into a Wednesday upgrade and with a turn-around trip Thursday in the calendar, nails were bitten short Wednesday afternoon. We are happy to announce the upgrade has been completed with very few hitches. There are a few follow up items to do when the server is resting from regular use (during the 4th of July holiday), but we are 95% complete.
Each year we take on technology improvements during the summer, this year:
We will wipe our brow and set in to learn the new features …. thankfully all went well!
Donald “The Brain” has much deserved travels on the calendar to a cool climate north East, with a tail end of the week showing travels for myself as well… good time for us to test all this new fancy technology.
Today is a WONDERFUL Friday, enjoy your day, your weekend, be thankful, and talk to you next week !
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
Posted in Donald Capone, Personal
Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank President (think Janet Yellen of collection of European countries bound together forming the Euro) made a splash in his speech. Cleverly, he instituted Quantitative Easing (QE), asset purchases to spur the economies in an amount greater than a leaked level earlier in the week.
Markets applauded… now let’s show them the money !
Perception can become reality. The ECB wants growth, and will not stop until they get it …
A positive result would be good for the World economy!
Next week Donald gets to show his stuff in front of a terrific group of fellow advisors. In true Hollywood form (career is taking off) he has been asked to do a 30 minute video too ! Wow… U Da Man! Well Done
The afore-mentioned event will take us both out of the office (not to worry, separate planes!) most of next week. Thanks to technology and Cathy here on the ground we will not miss a beat.
Have a great Friday and enjoy your weekend.
John A. Kvale CFA, CFP
PS Tons to talk about.. trying not to overwhelm, but no promises…haha
Posted in Donald Capone, Personal, World Political
Tagged Donald Capone III CFA, Donald the Brain, European Central Bank, Mario Draghi
What a crazy unique year this has been. As we prepare for the final push to year end, the uniqueness, in a good but crazy way continues to astound.
This last weekend, Donald and Randi flew into town on Friday and safely returned Sunday early afternoon. Due to the crazy weather, we were not even able to cross paths !! We had planned on making a huge announcement on Saturday at the party and posting pictures today …. But it was not to be. This original announcement came near Halloween, but we kept it under cover for the party until now.
CONGRATS DONALD AND RANDI … YOU WILL BE AWESOME PARENTS
The 18th Annual J.K. Financial, Inc. Holiday Party turned out to be more of a dive for safety than a nice soiree (I had to look the spelling of that word up…I digress.) After almost two decades we had yet to completely cancel a party until this weekend. We had stuck two HUGE party busses in a flooded street, ran out of alcohol in 15 minutes (early party) and chose a venue that was the new crammed packed destination for marathon pickup (fair park a few years ago) BUT we had never cancelled a party…..Until this weekend.
Here are a couple of pictures for those far from good ole Dallas. Oh…we did hear that over 70% of the USA had temperatures BELOW freezing on Friday/Saturday, a unique occurrence again … for those friends/clients over the two adjoining ponds.
One last item, the school gods continue to smile on kids of the DFW area as school has been cancelled again this Monday, leaving skeleton crews at most offices, present party included!
Last week we had several economic HEADLINE numbers that were above expectations, pushing confidence back into the equity markets. We will dissect these numbers, however at first read we think participants are overzealous. More to come!
Have a Great Monday!
John Kvale CFA, CFP
http://www.jkfinancialinc.com http://www.street-cents.com 8222 Douglas Ave # 590 Dallas, TX 75225Posted in Investing/Financial Planning
Tagged Donald Capone III CFA, Economic Numbers, Holiday Party
K-1’s have been mailed out and posted electronically, finally. As a friendly reminder most companies deliver K-1’s to regular investment accounts AND IRA or other qualified types of accounts.
You may ask why do they report to me something that is unnecessary?
Great question…No it’s not to confuse us (tax season is especially confusing already) it is to cover their bases. As an example, while many may have a title such as “John Doe IRA”, which seems easy to determine it is an IRA, what about “John Doe ILIT Trust Qualified Family Fund” ….. That one, as you can see can go either way.
If you or your tax professional have a question on whether to report or not to report, give us a call, we will know as “Donald the Brain” manually adjusts the basis for everyone (taxable and non-taxable) for the most accurate tax and return reporting.
Have a Great Day!
JK
214-706-4300 http://www.jkfinancialinc.com 8222 Douglas Ave # 590 Dallas, TX 75225Comments Off on IRA K-1’s DO NOT get filed for tax purposes
Posted in Tax Related
Tagged Donald Capone III CFA, ilit trust, K-1, Tax Reporting
As of today we are over the half way period of S&P 500 company earnings (90 day treadmill) reports. As usual, Donald “The Brain” has been diligently listening, reading, reviewing and analyzing these reports by the droves. A common theme has risen to the top this season which comes from the mouths of more than 80% of our followed executives sounds like this:
“We are happy to report X earnings….” (beating estimates) …”revenues have been challenging” (missing estimates, slower revenues) …..”and we are concerned as well as our customers and vendors about the fiscal cliff” (the fiscal cliff is of much greater concern than we thought it would be by key executives and is making for a domino effect of a collaborative holding back on projects)
Overall the theme is slowing…not stalling, or falling, but definitely slowing. This is not surprising to us at all and is why we have felt the capital markets have been overvalued and too optimistic late this year. It appears as of late capital markets are taking a more realistic view, again which we have been happily expecting.
The challenge will be to determine if we continue to slow, pick up steam or just plod along. The macro data appears to be pointing up for the housing sector, which has been an anchor for a LONG time and is a very large portion of the economy. We will keep you posted.
Today I find myself on the road out of the state but as usual tethered to the office easily via technology. My only issue with this trip is the absence of “Pumpkin Day” for my 7-year-old daughters school…yes it was another late night before the annual dress the pumpkin contest, but they will hopefully forgive me this time,
whew…
Have a Great Day and a Super Weekend!
JK
214-706-4300 http://www.jkfinancialinc.com 8222 Douglas Ave # 590 Dallas, TX 75225Comments Off on “Meet EPS..miss on revs…fiscal cliff concerns” and ….JK On the road again
Posted in Earnings Season, Market Comments
Tagged 90 Day Treadmill, Donald Capone III CFA, Earnings, Fiscal Cliff
Another reason we all call him the Brain !
Donald W. Capone III, in the news. 
Just few minutes ago, this press release from Business Wire went out nationwide.
Here are Donald’s comments:
“thinkpipes is much more than a trading platform and has truly become one of the most powerful tools that we leverage day-to-day,” said Donald Capone, CFA, portfolio manager at JK Financial, Inc. “If it’s being traded on the market, I no longer have to use multiple sources for historical data or quotes. It’s all right there at your fingertips in thinkpipes.”
What you don’t see is the fact that there are more than four thousand RIA’s that use TDA’s platform. When the powers of TDA were asked about utilization of the new, most technical, trading platform, (Thinkpipes) TDA went directly to Donald as a first choice to visit with due to his knowledgable of Thinkpipes.
Congrats again Donald and thanks for making such a great impression, keep up the great work!
Have a Super Day.
JK
214-706-4300
Comments Off on Donald W. Capone III CFA… AKA “The Brain” Does it Again, In Nationwide News
Posted in Clients/Clients Only, Donald Capone, In The News, Personal
Tagged Donald Capone III CFA, portfolio manager, TD Ameritrade, Thinkpipes
Donald “The Brain” does it again…A good company showing
In mid December 2012, during an industry related event, as written here in our “Holiday Party and Nerds” post a good-sized group of financial professionals including ourselves turned a nice holiday party into a slightly heated discussion concerning the end of the year market close for the S&P 500.
The most interesting or entertaining portion of the event, depending on your point of view was the conviction most had in their point of view. Remember in mid December there were very little information on the fiscal cliff compromises, not that there are today (I digress), but there were certainly tons of uncertainties.
And the winner is/was ….drum roll please……..
Donald Capone, Yep the brain did it again! His call was 1440 and with a closing of 1426 he was the winner over 9 other participants including myself.
Let it be known, J.K. Financial, Inc. was well represented with Donald taking the next to last Friday winner, myself as the last Friday winner with a 1400 call, and Donald sealing the deal as the ultimate winner.
We are of course happy to let you know of our winnings, but please do not take these as a conquering of the capital markets as there is a lot of luck that goes into such calls. We are happy to be lucky any day of the week!
Have a Great Weekend!
JK
PS The newsletter came out terrific and we will highlight a few items next week ..Break In, Break In,…..Grrrrrr! One of our predictions was just scooped, by a news story early this am…Tim Geihtner is leaving at the end of the month…we predicted some time this year, with concerns, in our newsletter!
PSS With my beloved Cowboys out again, my best wishes to all Alumni who will be watching College games, especially tonight…Good Luck to all..I will be watching too!
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Posted in Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments
Tagged College Games, Donald Capone III CFA, Nerds, The Brain