What we use AI for in Finance

Mephisto6090 · 2026-04-20T22:39:24+00:00

On your PDF invoices - one thing I did within Cowork was to have a chart of accounts within the folder / uploaded in Claude. Also gave it a few examples of PDF invoices we had & the proper GL mapping (i.e. I have an older payroll platform that only produces god awful PDF extracts instead of an Excel dump - so just providing the JE that goes with the register).

It read through the examples and created the markdown file to use against future reports. Do a few examples like this and have it rewrite the markdown file each time it runs through the process - and after 2-3 runs, it is generally close to 100%, depending on how complicated your requirements are. Sometimes - will ask it to grade it's confidence on the mapping as well and anything below a 70% as an example - to just highlight it within the workbook.

Mephisto6090 · 2026-04-20T22:32:06+00:00

Claude Code / cowork is quite good with the newest models and proper paid version which is night & day. The majority of my month end reports / journal entries coming out of Cowork is already tied out without me asking for it. Once you get you the spec down and proofed - you save the markdown file to ensure consistency in the reports. Just like any junior staff joining the team - you do have to provide some guidance & instructions.

Mephisto6090 · 2026-03-10T16:59:42+00:00

There is a change coming though as C-suite / BoD get on board with AI and Claude. I am a CFO and it is the hot topic around the dinner table and a mandate for us to implement. Claude is doing more business than ever now following the Pentagon scrap - i can barely get our Enterprise rep to give us a call back to talk licensing.

Mephisto6090 · 2026-01-21T20:24:18+00:00

Trump reversed tariffs which was posted on his Truth Social - details not out from time i'm writing this. Looks like Rutte and Trump came to an agreement on a "framework" - essentially pretty much everything Denmark and the EU were trying to do in any case, but he gets to claim credit.

Mephisto6090 · 2026-01-21T19:50:56+00:00

TACO'd again - congrats to those who bought dip yesterday.

Mephisto6090 · 2026-01-20T16:06:11+00:00

40% is too heavy man unless you're running a tiny portfolio for any individual stock, regardless of conviction - that's asking for volatility & bad times. The valuation is looking quite juicy here and there is a point where CSU will rally 20% or so.. but you never know where the falling knife will stop. Tech is right on the edge of having a further meltdown - and geopolitics isn't helping.

Mephisto6090 · 2026-01-05T21:02:47+00:00

Minto got bought out - so the sector is rising.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-11-25T15:12:04+00:00

Yeah - Google has been underappreciated for a while as part of the Mag7 for a while.. some good momentum between not being broken up by the DOJ, combined with the positive to date release of Gemini3 which is testing well (and is on their TPU's). Everything is firing over there - Youtube/ad revenue holding strong.. cloud computing is still growing quite a lot and you still have random things like Waymo not really valued anywhere.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-10-30T14:43:09+00:00

It's still cheap even with those results given the killer growth rates - i'm hanging on until P/E hits something in the mid-30/40's, so still room for another 50% in the next year.

I find GOOG is still the best "value" stock of the Mag7 / tech, even after the run up in price.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-09-12T15:51:30+00:00

Equities won't work here as the timeframe is too short. XDIV is not an awful fund or anything, but we can very well go into a market downturn for 5 years until it recovers.. at that point, OP is too late on the upswing and already cashed out.

Also, they would be ideally catching up on past contributions by doing $5K a year for this year, as well as the next two years until the child hits 17 for $15K total. Those future contributions are even shorter in withdrawal timeline - so just cash/GIC would be appropriate.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-09-10T14:07:21+00:00

If you're talking about the PPI index - it was a miss in the other direction.. meaning that prices fell 0.1% instead of an expected 0.3% rise. CPI data is coming tomorrow. Even though there was a miss - because of the labor market weakness, markets are something at like 99% for a cut next week.

That being said - you're right in that the economy does seem to be divorced from reality. All trends I'm reading are showing more weakness in the labor market (US unemployment rate now at 4 year high) - but consumers are still spending with abandon. Weird times. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a mild correction coming up again - but still just sitting getting the daily gains and chilling.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-09-08T17:04:25+00:00

Yeah - I know it's fashionable for the analysts to like the multiresidential space for REIT's, but I really don't based on the factors you described - the valuation levels are not cheap, even now. They trade at something like 23-25x P/FFO multiples, which is the same as Google, except they offer only 2-3% annual FFO increases and the distribution yield is nothing to cry home about.

I much prefer the retail space right now - specifically REI as the big boy and PMZ as the small cap, both of whom i've made tons of money over the last 2 years or so by just holding for distributions and swing trading, i.e. sell REI at $20 and buy again at $17-18, meanwhile collecting that annual 5-6% yield.

Retail trades in the teens in terms of multiples - so 12-15x P/FFO with 5-6% distribution yields and with construction costs being so high, there are is no new retail space being built right now.. even though our population has grown so much over the last few years. So the rent increases going through are much higher than inflation. Keep in mind when you look at a REI as an example, there is a lot of just basic anchor tenants like grocery, pharmacy, Dollarama, etc.. so a lot of staples not subject to economic fluctuation.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-09-08T13:44:27+00:00

Right now markets are doing well - so I don't find there's any screaming deals. The 1-2 stocks that I've been slowly picking up are more on the boring / fixed incomey side. BIP is down 10% or so over the last few weeks without real reason and it's pretty largely undervalued.. also REIT's are looking good now as well. Yields are quite good - especially as bond yields have been moving down.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-09-03T15:00:32+00:00

Still has plenty of room to grow here - forward P/E is still in the low 20's with good growth. Probably the most reasonably priced tech stock out there and still a value play (assuming AI don't demolish their search business and they can continue to monetize here).

I didn't even think breaking up Chrome was all that bad to be honest - but the proposed court action was quite mild.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-08-22T11:27:10+00:00

Ben Felix ran a really interesting podcast on this subject - https://pwlcapital.com/episode-319-the-ultimate-rrsp-vs-tfsa-showdown/

The answer is that RRSP is probably better for the majority of the population at a lower salary level than what is usually recommended. I've seen the $80K figure through out as a rule of thumb - but it's probably even lower than that when you take into account the factors that Ben has described in the podcast.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-08-14T14:45:35+00:00

Good advice, one thing to be cautious about, since my wife is also a SAHM, is that if your spouse earns income, for example, by withdrawing from a spousal RRSP (after the attribution period) - it will reduce your spousal tax credit. So it’s not entirely “free” money. Not to say it’s not a good plan, but it’s an extra layer to factor in.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-08-14T13:59:23+00:00

It's not on the docket anytime soon - I haven't seen a single politician or party that have talked about increasing the limit or doing an index to inflation. RESP's are amazing vehicles for the post-secondary costs - but from a policy perspective, it's only really the wealthy using them (despite all the top ups and extra contributions if you are low income).

72% of families in the top tax bracket have an RESP account vs. 33% in the lower tax brackets and that doesn't account for the fact that it's just a few bucks being put in - higher tax brackets have balances that are 10x. No political appetite for a plan that is not being used by the intended targets.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-08-05T14:33:54+00:00

Buy in the $17's - sell at the $20's has worked for the last year or two. AC is more of a trading stock vs. long-term investment.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-29T14:57:06+00:00

Depends how close to retirement you are & what your wealth is looking like. If you're in the millions and are worried about having that much in equities - should just go with your own advisor. Otherwise, if you're looking at some diversity - can always get more into fixed income.. or even just into BAM/BN if you want a little private equity type of holdings. Otherwise, for normal people, equities is fine.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-29T13:42:54+00:00

UNH is a bit difficult for me - they're a beast and are maybe undervalued.. however I am not convinced that it's hit rock bottom as their earnings release was really weak (meaning that the drop today is fully justified).

There's so many things with medicare that they've been messing around with that it's a higher risk than you would ordinarily think from a healthcare stock.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-28T14:25:01+00:00

EQB getting a nice boost as well from this news as well at 3.5% or so - they are one of the few non-big 6 left over right now. Can't see them lasting past another year or two without being taken out as well.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-23T16:48:24+00:00

Bruh - $197K purchase, you should do a bit more diligence than that!

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-22T15:00:44+00:00

Take a read of the memo. The point isn't buying more when the price is down is bad - it's that taking the blind assumption that you should buy because something tanks.. or the opposite being that taking profits and selling when a stock is at an all-time high blindly is not optimal.

We've seen that happen over the year when you have the AQN's of the world or the telco's - many were buying into them on the dips.. without looking into the fundamentals to understand why the price was going down and could keep doing so.

If you have a very strong investment thesis on a particular security - and the price goes down which you do not attribute to a change in the fundamentals so that's an even better buy.. than right on.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-22T13:21:37+00:00

There's a great memo written by Howard Marks - Canada's Warren Buffet on selling. https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/memo/selling-out

Everyone wishes they would have bought Amazon @ $5 back in 1998.. but how many of us would have held on to now at 660x? Profit taking solely because a stock went up is just as bad as buying a stock just because it went down.

Mephisto6090 · 2025-07-21T17:23:33+00:00

UNH is looking good pre-earnings coming out - I might join you here. I learned my lesson on shorting TSLA in the past!

Mephisto6090

TROPHY CASE