Tag Archives: FOMC

Another Positive Friday …

Posted on March 27, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Last weeks positive Friday garnered so many comments and Thank You’s that I thought it worth repeating as it’s so much easier to find negatives even if you are trying to avoid them…but there are lots of positives occurring.Unity hands-1939895_1280

  • On a very personal note, I’m happy to announce that my 92-year-old father was able to navigate the online virtual doctor appointment with complete success – Now if he can do it, we can do it if need be!
  • The Federal Reserve continues its policies and has begun adding liquidity to the Fixed Income Market – More on this soon
  • There was a $2 trillion stimulus package announced-which is wonderful news and helps bridge businesses and workers
  • It appears multiple countries are beginning to flatten the curve
  • Some parents may be finding out … it’s not the Teacher–hah – (Hat tip Cousin)
  • Spring is one week closer, its getting warmer … and the sun is up longer every day!
  • If we only had three more days like Wednesday we would be back to all time highs in the Capital Markets! (That will make you go hmmm- not kidding)
  • Our Country, Government and residents continue to work together in fantastic unity!

Have a GREAT “Positive” Friday and Weekend, Stay Safe!

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

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Posted in Education, Investing/Financial Planning, John Kvale, Market Comments, Personal

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From the Road … FOMC Takes Action Last Night in Response to Shutdowns and Economic Slowdowns

Posted on March 16, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Not wanting to bring a knife to a possible gun fight, the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) led by Jerome Powell announced multiple actions in response to Corona and the related shutdowns last night.

FOMC Lowers Rates, Lowers Bank Reserves and Adds Money

On Friday a coalition of private and public groups agreed to begin more testing for the Corona Virus… not surprisingly if you are able to test more, there have been more findings.

Last night the FOMC led by Jerome Powell announced multiple measures to help economic activity:

  • Lowering of Short Term Rates
  • Lowering of Bank Requirements AND encouraging Banks to lend to businesses, especially small businesses with the extra freed up reserves
  • Purchasing of Treasury and Mortgage Securities for Liquidity and lowering of rates

Friday, I mentioned multiple ways to think of the current events… given the above events, here is another example…

  1. The FOMC did all of this, it must really be bad…
  2. Not wanting to get behind, the FOMC is taking advanced actions to help stay in front of disruption and possible slowness…

Choice one is easy and likely will show up somewhere in your sights, if it has not already …. again, choice two is the positive, high road choice, and will only likely be seen here today!

Yes, events are making the Spring Break Trip hard to focus on family and friends, but in a strange way, maybe it is good to be out of the office!

Careful what you intake… drama rises to the top!

Rest assured, as you can tell, we have complete remote access…and again, we are a conservative firm by nature!

Have a Great “FOMC No Knife to Gunfight” 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

 

 

 

 

 

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

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Interest Rates Presenting an Opportunity, Eventually … Current Freddie Mac Mortgage Rates as of Last Week

Posted on March 4, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Really like to work on articles a few days, to even a few weeks (ever so often months) in advance … repeat visits to the draft make for a better post as different moods make for different views.

Well…given the speed of Capital Markets lately… a second or third look may garner a loss of possibility.

Break In: As mentioned above, things are moving quickly, yesterday early in the AM, FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) chaired by Jerome Powell lowered interest rates by .50 or 50 basis points as an insurance policy against slowing economic conditions. This does not directly affect loan rates, but speaks to a slower economic situation, which does effect rates across the board!

More on this at a later time…. but the following is an all time inter-day low yesterday for the 10 year treasury yield…at least for the moment!

img_6213

.91% – this from the cell, such the unusual format.

Break In Again: Interestingly, after a big rally on Monday and another set for today, the treasury yield is unexpectedly staying low and not rising dramatically in yield, which is what one would expect. This actually gives loan rates time to catch up in their possible slower decline – making this exercise all the better!

Now… let’s carry on …

Fixed Rate Loans, Especially Long Dated, such as 30 Year Mortgages Need Review

Not withstanding the comments in the opener, interest rates have dropped so fast on Virus fears and possible slowing economic conditions as a result that some loans may have not completely caught up as of yet…

3-2-20 Chart of 10 year Treasury

That is an all time low- WOW!

Freddie Mac Rates

Here are the latest average mortgage rates from Freddie Mac as of last week… they are posted only weekly….

2-27-20 Freddie Mac Avg Rates

Now is a good time to review any fixed rate loans, ESPECIALLY longer dated ones… in refinancing a mortgage, here is a detailed post, the following is the most important nugget from that post…

Think 18 months cost break even – We like to have the saving from the refinance cover the cost of the refinance within 18 months – i.e. Person with $30k mortgage at 5% probably would not need to refinance to 4%, but a $3 million mortgage may be smart to refinance from 4.25% to 4% or the like, if the numbers work out.

Have a Great “Fast Moving Markets” 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

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Posted in Debt - Debt Management, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments

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December 2019 Podcast Video, Financial Planning and Capital Market Update – By John Kvale

Posted on January 3, 2020 by | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our December 2019 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!

December – 2019 Video

Financial Planning Tip (s) –

12-31-19 Secure Act House Ways and Means

SECURE Act is Signed at the Finish Line of the Year

As mentioned here in our preview post, with a stroke of a pen on the Saturday before the Christmas week, the SECURE ACT (Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement) – Wow that is a mouthful!

The Biggies:

  1. Age 72 RMD, up from the confusing 70.5
  2. Non-Spouse 10 Year Mandatory distributions of Inherited IRA – Mandating taxes by beneficiary

Tons of planning techniques and lots more to the law, but these again are the biggies!

Capital Market Comments –

FED Pauses and Markets Yawn… Finally

The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) led by Jerome Powell and company, FINALLY were able to not lower rates and market participants accepted it… Shhh, lets keep it our secret..haha

12-16-19 Fed Funds Rate

 

Happy 2020!

Have a Great Day – Talk to you at the end of January!

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
street-cents

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Posted in Economy, FOMC, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Podcast, Tax Related, Video

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Shhh … FED Quietly Pauses … Finally

Posted on December 13, 2019 by | Leave a comment

The FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) led by Jerome Powell, quietly paused this week.

FOMC No Change

Mid-Week, the FOMC announced no change in their controlled short term interest rate.

12-16-19 Fed Funds Rate

We have been vocal about not lowering rates moving forward, to keep some gunpowder for the next recession.

After a market desired multiple small lowering of rates earlier this year, this week, the FOMC effectively did nothing, and did not disturb Capital Market Participants… finally.

They also made no future promises, again, with market blessings…

We like it!

Have a Great Friday!

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

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

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November 2019 Podcast Video, Financial Planning and Capital Market Update – By John Kvale

Posted on December 2, 2019 by | Leave a comment

Hello and Welcome to our November 2019 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!

November – 2019 Video

Financial Planning Tip (s) –

Email is the New Physical Address – Harder to Change

With email replacing our home address in importance, its not a surprise and only a mild inconvenience (due to the safety) to have to get a signed form in order to change our address.icons-157872__480 email address

In our descriptive post on the subject, we also predict eventually we will all likely be forced to transact most of our business in a paperless way….  Uncomfortable for many, but much better for our environment in the long term!

Why an Inheritance is Usually NOT Taxable

After running into this question numerous times we did a post here, and will also have an expanded article coming in our Q1 2020 Newsletter.inheritance

For the most part, inheritances are not taxable and in our post we go over the reasons why, and discuss techniques for being most tax efficient.

Just after this post a good follow on subject directly related to this post occurred that will go well in our “Why” Series Collection – Watch for another Inheritance Related Post and likely Newsletter Article !

 

Capital Market Comments –

When FED lowers, Recession Averted? Hmmmm

Near the end of the Quarter, as mentioned in our Fire Hydrant CEO post here, we ran into a most interesting chart (below)….

A first ever to see, the speaker points out that recessions are averted when the FED (Federal Open Market Committee – Jerome Powell the leader currently) lowers rates during an inverted yield curve… hmmmm

Not to worry, doing more research on this … oddly the speaker did not think much of Powell’s economic prowess, but spoke firmly that due to his LACK of horsepower on the Economy he may have a better chance of soft landing this slowdown…

 

img_5485

Always learning!!

Have a Great Day – Talk to you at the end of December!

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
street-cents

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Posted in Cyber, Economy, FOMC, General Financial Planning, Interest Rates, Investing/Financial Planning, Market Comments, Monthly Review, Podcast, Video

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Good News From Interest Rates – Friday

Posted on November 8, 2019 by | Leave a comment

While the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) led by Jerome Powell have been lowering short term rates, see notes by us here, here and here….

Until just recently, longer term rates were following short term rates down…

Good News From Interest Rates

While the FOMC does control short term rates, they have much less control of longer term rates and actually by lowering short term rates they were hoping for this….

Higher long term rates are our friend … Possible reasons:

  • Market participants way of being more positive
  • Tariff talks proceeding
  • Less fear
  • Expectation of future growth
11-7-19 Ten Year Treasury Update

10 Year Treasury Rate

If we showed a longer term chart you would see it still has a ways to go as we are only nearing 2% – half full guys… have to start somewhere…  For now, good news!

Newsletter Under WayQ 4 2019 Newsletter Banner small

We have some really neat items under way for the Q 1 2020 (yikes- did we just say that) Newsletter… we have found some great Government Public sources of information that we think you will really like – now on to pulling it all together for brevity and clarity — never thought those research paper skills would be so used – Sorry to all the English teachers that did not get full effort..yes you told me so! haha

Today is a chilly Friday and Thanksgiving is just around the corner…

Have a Great 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.
jkfinancialinc
street-cents

 

 

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

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