Money Matters TV: An Interview with Steve Check and Daniel White
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Host – Dan White
Good afternoon and welcome to another edition of Money Matters. My name is Dan White. I am the host of your show today.
And I'm also the president of Daniel White and Associates. We are a retirement planning firm. We're headquartered in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania.
And we have satellite offices in Middletown, Delaware. And we just opened the third office down in Lewis, Delaware, down to Delaware beaches. And we focus our practice on pre-retirees and retirees.
I mean, 55 to 75 years old is our target market. And we do a lot of seminar marketing. We're on the radio, that type of thing.
And it's kind of interesting, the biggest concern that we're hearing from clients and all the people that we see on a daily basis is that they're mainly that it's, I'm going to run out of money. That's why people are afraid to spend their money in retirement, because they're afraid they're going to run out. You know, they're worried about, you know, maybe they got beat up a little bit in the great recessions.
A little older folks can relate back to the dot-com bubble. And, you know, it's been proven that if you retire at one of those wrong times and you're drawing a lot of money out of your portfolio at the wrong time, it doesn't bode well. The sequence of return risk is pretty severe and it's you're not in a position to go back to work.
So the way we solve that, we tend to use a kind of a bucket strategy. We use an income bucket, which we feel has to be safer. It has to be safe money because that's where you're going to be drawing your retirement income from.
And then you have a growth bucket as well. The growth bucket is the inflation hedge. You're not taking, you know, you're taking risk with the growth bucket, but if you've got the income locked down and you have enough income coming in, you shouldn't have to touch the growth bucket and that can grow unimpeded.
So that's how we kind of deal with retirement income and some of the risk associated with it. It's a lot different today than it was 30, 40 years ago. People today no longer have pensions.
You know, Social Security is a little shaky. That's the only guaranteed income source people have. And then it's their savings and they have to rely on their savings.
And we've all heard about the 4% rule. You know, you can withdraw 4% from your portfolio. Inflation adjusted.
And there's, you know, back in the day, there was about a 95% chance you would make it to 90 or 95 years old. Well, now that's kind of been ticked down with some of the downturns. It might be in the 3% or so forth.
So people are concerned. They're worried about running out of money in retirement. And then the other thing that comes into play that we hear a lot is, you know, everybody wants to know where the stock market's going.
You know, what's it going to do? You know, and nobody has a crystal ball. But I mean, I'm in the belief that, you know, back in November, if you recall, August, September and October of last year, the market hit about a 10% drop, what would be considered a garden variety correction. And everybody was kind of worried.
Here it comes. You know, we're going to we're going to get smacked here. And the Fed had a meeting in November and Chairman Powell was predicting three rate cuts this year.
And some prognosticators turned that into six and the market took off. I mean, it took off. It's probably up 25% since November.
And we had a little blip about two weeks ago. But I think that's all been predicated on the Fed cutting interest rates. Everybody wants to go back to zero interest rates, you know, where life was good.
Well, unfortunately, inflation is not cooperating. We got a couple inflation reports in March and April and they were heading in the wrong direction. Inflation was going up instead of down.
So that kind of pushed back the rate cuts, you know, pushed them back from, you know, originally they were talking March and then they moved it to June. And now we're worried whether we're going to get any rate cuts at all. And I'm sure that the market has not factored in a rate hike.
So it all depends. And then last week we got some good news because the jobs report came in and unemployment went up. We didn't add as many jobs as the Fed predicted we would.
And again, bad news is good news. They took that as a as a good sign of unemployment is going up. That means our rate hikes are working and we might be able to cut rates a little later this year.
And that's when everybody kind of jumped on the bandwagon. The market shot up a little bit. So that's kind of where we're at today with the markets and also, you know, with people running out of money.
So I'm joined today. I'm pleasantly joined today with by Steve Check. Steve is the CEO of Check Capital Management out in Orange County, California.
Steve, welcome to the show.
Steve Check
Thank you, Dan. I'm happy to be here.
Host – Dan White
You probably have. Well, we're having pretty good weather here today, 80 degrees in Pennsylvania, but you probably get used to that every day out there.
Steve Check
Our typical weather is 75 plus or minus two degrees.
Host – Dan White
Yeah. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that.
So, Steve, you're you've been in business how long?
Steve Check
Thirty-seven years, believe it or not.
Host – Dan White
Well, that's the same as me.
I've been doing it since 1987 myself. So old timers here. We've got a lot, a lot of a lot under our belts here.
Before we get into talking about what you do, Steve, with your firm and how you manage clients' money and so forth, we did have a question. A question came in from our listeners from Robert Morris up in Boston. He said, in the stock market, are we at an all-time high? And if so, how should we plan for a correction? You know, I'll take a stab at that first, and I'll get your input.
But I mean, we are probably about one or two percent off the all time high. I mean, we're very we're very high. The stock market is valued pretty expensively right now.
If you are concerned about that, one avenue people have today, which we didn't have for years and years, is you can actually earn interest at the bank. You know, we've got banks paying, you know, north of five percent, five and a quarter percent. You get that in a money market account, a Schwab.
You can get it at the local bank and it's completely liquid. I mean, the goal used to be, you know, you save up a million dollars and you're getting five percent. You got 50 grand and you're not touching your principal.
Well, after the Great Recession hit, you know, they took interest rates to zero for the better part of 15 years and that was no longer the case. And I think people went further and further out on the yield on the yield curve. They're taking more risks to get any type of return.
The good news today, you can get five percent in your local bank. And I think it really boils down to, you know, how old are you and when are you going to need the money? I mean, if you don't need the money, if you're 35 years old and you're saving for retirement, I wouldn't worry about a correction over 30 years. The market will go up.
But if you're near retirement and, you know, you're going to start drawing on this money quickly. I think it has to be moved to a safer position. And as I said earlier, our firm kind of sets up an income bucket and a growth bucket and the income bucket doesn't matter what the market does.
You're still going to get the income and then the growth bucket. You know, if we're not touching it, we can kind of let that grow. Steve, what are your thoughts on that? If we're near the all-time high and one of your clients, I mean, how are you preparing them for a correction?
Steve Check
Yeah, first of all, timing the market is, in my opinion, impossible.
So you should really set up your overall portfolio. So that's just not part of what you have to do. And Dan, you do sound very familiar.
You know, the fact that you're in business the same amount of time as I've been, but also a bucket approach.
We take a bucket approach ourselves, ourselves to maybe a little bit different. We call it a spending bucket and a growth bucket as opposed to your term, income bucket and a growth bucket.
But we like to set aside for our clients the next three to five years of withdrawal money in the spending bucket. And then the remaining money goes in the growth bucket to, you know, to be rewarded by what would normally be stock market investments that do outperform over that type of time frame. But, you know, a 10 percent correction in the market happens, as you know, like once every about two years on average.
So really should be planning for that versus being worried about it when it does happen.
Host - Dan White
Yeah. And I guess I guess the issue as well is, you know, and I've been I don't know how long I've been saying this.
When is when is the national debt become an issue? I mean, we're north of 34 trillion. We're going to be over 35 trillion. You know, where do you see that, you know, becoming an issue?
Steve Check
Well, the debt is in our own currency.
So if we if we had to pay it in some other currency, that might be another story. But in our case, you know, it is the U.S. dollar is the world reserve and we can issue more dollars when we want to. And you would think there will be inflation and there is inflation, you know, as we as we've seen now, you know, the last couple of years, there is real inflation.
But it's a concern. But we have a very resilient system. And again, if you are concerned about that, again, going to cash isn't the right call.
I don't think it's only owning a business that is an inflation hedge.
Host – Dan White
Yeah. Yeah.
And I think you're true. I mean, if you're if you're worried about a correction, it really it really boils down to, you know, having a plan, having a plan in place and then following that plan. And if you're going to have 10 percent or, you know, correction, if you're following your plan and you've set it up properly, it's not going to be an issue.
So if any of the listeners out there want to send in a question, here's how you can send in a question to Money Matters. All right. So, like I said, it's my pleasure to have Steve on the show today.
And I'm kind of excited because, as we just found out, we're in the business the same amount of time. We do things our way, probably does things a little differently. But just to kick things off, Steve, what I know you touched on is what is the investment philosophy and approach of check Capital? How do you try to do it?
Steve Check
Well, first of all, we manage about one point nine billion dollars for about eleven hundred clients.
Coming from the old school back 37 years ago, we actually bought individual stocks and sold individual stocks and invested in the market that way. And that's still what we do here at Check Capital Management. So we take a relatively focused approach.
We try to find maybe 15 really good companies trading at really good prices. And we're generally quite long-term owners. A lot of my queue comes from the example of Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway has actually been our largest holding for probably 25 years.
I've attended the annual meetings for 28 years in a row, if you want to count the Covid years where we watched them online. But I just got back from that here this weekend. And it's really like going back to, again, back home and hearing about the rational way to invest, which is, you know, when you own stock, you're a part owner of a business and you want to get good businesses at good prices.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, it must have been a little different this year without Charlie Munger there.
Steve Check
It was different. It started out with kind of a reflection video of Charlie and his life.
And he was always sort of there in the background. And even in answering the first question, where Warren will turn to us, I guess it would be to his left and say, Charlie, do you have anything to add? He actually said, “Charlie, do you have anything to add?” to Greg Abel
Host – Dan White
Yeah, I got a newsletter from Whitney Telson. And I know he goes to the annual meeting every year.
And he had mentioned that Warren and Charlie, you know, he's like, Charlie's not here anymore as well. But yeah, Berkshire Hathaway is a great model to follow.
And I know Warren has said in the past, it's not that they're great investors. They just try to avoid stupid mistakes, you know, which is what most people do. But can you describe a little bit about the types of investment strategies or products that your firm offers to clients?
Steve Check
Well, we have three that would be kind of considered in the growth area. And the primary one, we're over a billion of the 1.9 billion we manage is in the stocks, as I talked about a relatively focused portfolio, 12 to 15 stocks would be typical.
But for more aggressive people, we have found a way to invest in Berkshire Hathaway options and kind of leverage, if you will, Berkshire's steady growth into higher returns. And I won't mention the returns here on the air, but anyone could go to our website and kind of find a fact sheet on what we do.
And then for people that want something that's lower risk, especially as you mentioned, over the last 15 years, where interest rates were very low, we found a way to, you know, you could buy Berkshire Hathaway stock and actually sell a covered call against the stock.
And we came up with a way, returns that were a fair amount better than fixed income type of alternatives. So those are three primary products. And then we'll ladder up to kind of cover that as you call the income bucket, or we'll call the spending bucket.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, I was kind of curious how you did that. Because yeah, for 15 years, like you said, there was no yield at all. And it was hard to, you know, people didn't want to have 100% in the market.
But at the same point in time, you're, you're killing the portfolio when you're only getting one to 2% on the fixed income side.
Well, how does your company kind of assess and select the investment opportunities for the portfolio? So is there any type of screening process that you go through when you're picking, making stock selections?
Steve Check
Yeah, we recognize, first of all, as we've kind of been talking about already that the market is volatile and, and use that volatility to your advantage, not disadvantage. So if the market does sell off, that's where you want to be looking for bargains.
But we've really got it down to maybe around 150 companies that we think are of the quality that if we could buy them at the right price, we would. And what we're really looking for are our durable growth companies, managed by, you know, managers that really have the shareholders in mind. And you'll see that often through the capital allocations, capital allocation decisions that the management makes, such as buying back their stock when it's cheap.
That's a very shareholder-friendly type of thing to do, as opposed to just building an empire and buying another company for them to be managing a bigger entity. So, we really like we take it down from like, like I said, 150 good quality companies, and we're following them all the time. And if we follow, we follow an average company, we probably get a chance to buy it once every five or 10 years.
But when we do buy, we like to buy, you know, in force. We don't trade very often, we probably only buy two or three companies a year, or three or four stocks a year. And we usually hold them around seven years is what we're finding is our typical holding period.
So relatively tax efficient in the sense that we do take long-term capital gains when we when we do take profits. And at the same time, we let some compounding work for us.
Host – Dan White
So I'm going to go off the grid maybe a little bit here, Steve.
You know, the rage all last year, we heard about the Magnificent Seven and, you know, an AI and if you're not part of AI, you're missing the boat. And, you know, all the all the semiconductor stocks that were going to the moon. I'm sure they would not pass your test as far as being appropriate for your client base.
Steve Check
Well, first of all, there's always a hot area market. I've seen hot areas, quote, hot areas of the market for the last, you know, again, 35 years. And generally speaking, you're right, that's not where you want to go.
Because when they're hot, they're usually not inexpensive. Interestingly, we have owned Alphabet or Google over the last several years, it wasn't overpriced from, let's say, a value investors point of view. And that might be, you know, termed as a, you know, buying something at a price earning ratio of 15 or 20.
But when those stocks start trading at price ratios of 30 or 40, because they become very popular. No, that's not something I'd be interested in. And I think even you're seeing Warren Buffett here with Apple, Apple is by far Berkshire's largest stock position.
But he took on that position maybe seven or eight years ago, when the stock was trading at around a PE of 15. And now that it's trades at a PE of 25 or 30. He's been trimming the position over the last couple of quarters.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, I was, you stole some of my thunder, I was going to bring up Apple because I knew Berkshire had sold some of that. So I guess from what I'm hearing, you're not buying NVIDIA, you're not buying micro semi computers, that type of thing, because the valuations and the multiples are just too high at this point.
Steve Check
That's correct.
We are not buying them. You have to make a pencil out, you know, you have to say to yourself, you know, if the stock trades at a kind of a more normal price, returns ratio, say in five or 10 years, what do the earnings have to do to to justify, let's say today's price. And a lot of times those kind of things do not pencil out.
But we have been surprised. I mean, the big tech over the last 10 years is, I think, done better than any group of big companies in history. And it has surprised a lot of us.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, last year was kind of kind of an outlier in the sense that when you talk about the Magnificent Seven, the S&P was up 24% last year. But a lot of that was the big companies. You know, if you took away those seven stocks, I think the S&P was, for the most part, flat last year.
Steve Check
Yeah, no question. They have been driving the market here for a while. And now the year before they did it, they went the other way.
So maybe last year was a bit of a rebound. But nonetheless, over the last five years, they certainly have. If you look at the NASDAQ, it's done quite a bit better than the S&P, let's say, over the last 20 years.
And that's because the NASDAQ has those big tech companies as a heavy weighting in their index.
Host – Dan White
Yeah. So again, talking about your philosophy, your company and all, and your allegiance to kind of Berkshire Hathaway, would you consider the investing you do for your clients, would you consider yourself a growth investor or more geared toward more of a value investor?
Steve Check
Well, we want the best growth we can get.
But first and foremost, though, we really do put a big weighting on valuation. And of course, you know, what a company is worth is based on the growth, but not the growth over the next year, one or two years, but the growth over the next 10 or 15 years. So we have a hard time really, you know, thinking that we can confidently predict 10 or 15 year type out numbers in terms of earnings.
So most times you can put us in the value camp where we're saying, hey, we want this company to be cheap based on what we think the company is going to earn over the next, say, three to four to five years.
Host – Dan White
So basically, what I'm hearing then, Steve, is you kind of have this 150 stocks on the radar, a watch list, if you will. And then as you're checking them and the valuations come down in a range that you feel comfortable with, that's when you begin to make your selections.
Steve Check
Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah, you're hearing it exactly right. I mean, to get on that list of 150, the company is going to have to have been around for a while, like, say, 15, 20, 30 years and have been steady, you know, market leading performers over that kind of period of time. We believe winners often stay winners and success, you know, follows success.
But again, there's the right price to pay for that success. And that's what we're talking about in terms of the valuation.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, I've looked at some of Berkshire's stuff over the years.
I mean, he's a big Coca-Cola fan and Hershey's. And again, it all depends on the price you buy in at, whether it's going to be a good investment or a bad investment. Even great companies, if you buy them at too expensive, it's not going to pan out for you.
So, I mean, I've read these stories about Buffett time and time again. But what would you say sets your firm apart, Steve, from other investment firms in terms of your approach to wealth management and investment strategies? Why check capital management over somebody else?
Steve Check
Well, we're a very independent firm. We're a registered investment advisor, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, but we're not working for any bigger place that's looking for us to sell a certain product or anything of the sort.
One thing, I guess, that really does set us apart is our fee schedule for qualified clients. And the SEC has a definition of what qualified clients are. But qualified clients pay us a management fee equal to 10% of their profits.
So we don't make the typical 1% fee with most of our clients. Most of our clients are paying us just based on results. And that really aligns our interests, we find, with our clients.
Host – Dan White
That's good. That's good.
So how do you keep abreast of market trends, economic developments, geopolitical factors are kind of big today.
People were worried about the war in Ukraine, the war in Israel and the shipping channels and all that. How would that impact your investment philosophies and decisions?
Steve Check
Well, we keep abreast of things like most people do. We just kind of keep our eyes open and our ears open and we read and we're aware of what's going on, of course.
But remember, we're becoming owners in businesses. And so we're most thinking about, hey, if there's something going on in Ukraine, will that affect anything we're looking to buy or hold and really take it down to that level as opposed to, again, the big picture thing, which there's always going to be stuff in the big picture, as you know, Dan, that is going to provide worry. And you've got to get beyond that and recognize that when you own stock, you own a business.
If you own a good business at a good price, pretty much the big picture is not going to affect you too much.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, I love quoting Warren all the time, you know, because one of my favorite quotes of him is, you know, when the tide goes out, all ships sink. It doesn't matter if you're in a good company or bad company.
If we're in a downturn, they're probably all going to drop, you know. But can you... Go ahead.
Steve Check
You see over my shoulder there, I got Warren and Charlie little stuffed pillows.
They're always watching and making sure I'm doing the right thing.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, there you go. There you go.
Can you discuss any specific investment success stories you've had or notable achievements that Check Capital has obtained over the years?
Steve Check
Well, I can't really go into, let's say, the performance, but anyone, again, is welcome to look at our website and take a look at that. But, you know, some of the numbers there that we can show you are pretty remarkable. But I just think that, you know, we just have had, you know, really long term clients.
We have an annual meeting ourselves every year. And it's just great. You know, like Berkshire Hathaway has their annual meeting. We have our annual meeting.
It's just great to see the longevity of our clients. And I think our typical client is on average something like, believe it or not, like 15, 20 years.
So it's very rewarding to do, you know, what you do for your business, I'm sure. And what we do is, you know, really help out people so they can have a comfortable retirement and have it financially work out for them.
Host – Dan White
Yeah.
So, I mean, it's true. I mean, I think some of the greatest satisfaction, I think it's a great business to be in myself personally. I love it.
And just seeing people succeed and have that peace of mind and all that. Do you do any investing for any institutions or is it mainly just individuals?
Steve Check
Very few institutions. We might have a little one here and there.
That's usually where we might have the CEO of the company where you might be investing some of the company money. But our typical client is, you know, a two to three million dollar net worth. Just kind of your, you know, your higher middle and middle upper class.
But really, you know, a real common, you know, mass affluent, I think, is what some of the financial industry might refer to them as.
Host – Dan White
Right, right. So what advice would Check Capital offer to investors today that are looking to build a diversified and resilient, you know, investment portfolio in today's market environment?
Steve Check
Well, we'll do what it sounds like you'll do, too.
You know, you'll look at all the big picture of what the client's coming in with, what their expectations are for the money. Really give them a reality check on whether the expectations, you know, will likely work or not. You can use the rule of thumbs like you kind of suggested earlier, too, of maybe spending four percent of your portfolio.
And that will usually work over time. Maybe it's a little less now, but we haven't found that to be something that's that hard to accomplish and make the money last. And really just a lot of it has to do with educating to make sure clients are comfortable and recognize, you know, the way we invest and are on board with the way we invest.
They want to be part owners of good businesses and withstand the ups and downs. And so a lot of it's education. We write a monthly newsletter, which is just along those lines of really kind of what's going on.
And really, it's oftentimes more about what we own, as opposed to what's going on in the big picture. We always reference the market. We're always aware of the market. But it really comes down to what you own.
Host – Dan White
Yeah. How big how big a shop do you have there? How many like how many employees are at check capital?
Steve Check
Yeah, we're pretty small in terms of employees.
So with our 1.9 billion dollars, we have just 12 employees.
Host – Dan White
That's great. So you keep keep the overhead pretty low for everybody, huh?
Steve Check
So we look at it all as a win-win here.
Host – Dan White
That's good. So one I know we're running short on time. We got a couple of minutes left.
But one of the things that, you know, you never see coming, you know, they call these things black swans, you know, COVID, for example. I mean, maybe we should have seen it coming, but kind of caught us all by surprise. And you never know when these things are going to happen.
You know, Lehman Brothers, I mean, you know, going out of business. So I mean, do you see any catastrophic black swans on the horizon these days?
Steve Check
Well, they wouldn't be black swans if I could see them. Yeah, no.
And I didn't see I didn't see the one of the ones you just referenced coming. And, you know, I won't see the next one coming, I doubt it either. So the good news is, is we're still here and our clients are still here and it's working out financially.
So you have to invest, you know, again, with the fact that those kind of things will happen. But you also have to invest with long term odds. And, you know, looking here, I mean, the S&P has gone up 93% of the time over a five year period of time.
So those are the kind of odds you want to, you know, kind of bet on. And 93% odds, you can win a lot of money in Las Vegas with those kind of odds.
Host – Dan White
Yeah, that's for sure.
I mean, you never know what's going to happen, that's for sure. And then you throw more stuff on the fire. You know, we got a presidential election this year.
And, you know, people are often asking, you know, who should I bet on? You know, what if Biden wins? What if Trump wins? And either one of them could end up in a heap of trouble. Do you see the election being any type of issue this year?
Steve Check
Well, I think it's another very interesting election. And I do think it'll probably create some market volatility.
But if you go back over the, again, the history of last 50 or 100 years and look at the, you know, whether it's a Democrat or Republican, et cetera, that's usually not the factor. It's about business, it's about interest rates, it's about inflation, it's about market valuations usually when a president takes over. So that has probably more to do with it than anything else.
You know, after the 2008 market decline, you know, the market was set up to do well over the next eight years, and it did.
Host – Dan White
Right. So I think we're just about out of time.
So I want to thank you, Steve, for being on the program today. I think it was a great conversation. And our next guest is Maureen Weigel of General BG.
She's going to be on the Money Matters program the next time. And we want to thank everybody for joining us today for another edition of Money Matters. We'll see you next time.