PROGRESS INVESTMENT PLANNING
Providing Independent Financial Counsel for Your Retirement
Welcome to
Progress Investment Planning
Our true objective, with each individual client, is to provide independent wise counsel for pre-retirees and retirees. During this period, there are several important decisions— which need to be made wisely— that have a real impact on the quality of your retirement.
Our Investment Philosophy
Progress Investment Planning makes long-term investments in publicly traded stocks, concentrating on companies where the market appears to be inefficient.
We are looking to invest in businesses wherein there is a large gap between price and intrinsic value. We source ideas through a proprietary rigorous and independent research process, which tends to result in differentiated portfolio construction. We focus on what makes each business valuable and unique to a buyer. The greater the discount between price and value, the greater the Margin of Safety, and thus, risk is significantly lower. Our average holding period tends to be around five-years.
Margin of Safety
Managing Risk
We also deal with managing portfolio risk by keeping the Margin of Safety large for each individual position. In good times, we are satisfied with lower, stable returns in contrast to higher risk options which could have higher returns. We believe the skillful investor and the mark of a true professional is how they outperform (controlling risk) in a down market. We believe this is accomplished with research at the beginning of our process by focusing on the relationship between price and value.
Great investors like Warren Buffett have superior track records because they avoided torpedoes and dealt with risk at the front-end before making an investment. We believe risk control is essential at all times. However, it may only become visible in bad times because it is invisible in the good times— where clients are focused on returns. Therefore, we strive at all times to take only price risk (market risk), not asset risk.
Contact Us
Progress Investment Planning, LLC
Dr. Christian Koch, CFP®, CPWA®, CDFA®, RICP®
Founder and Portfolio Manager
Read an excerpt from Dr. Koch’s book, Soul of Success:
Our Process
WISE FINANCIAL COUNSEL
We believe investor behavior is the primary determinant of investment success. A portfolio is simply a tool for the realization of our clients' goals.
A few of the questions I will ask before we start working on your financial future:
1) What are your investment goals?
2) How much time do you have to accomplish your goals?
3) What financial resources can you bring to the effort of achieving your goals?
Together, we will develop an investment strategy to achieve your personal objectives. Over the years, I will provide continuing education on how to invest and create a high quality portfolio of investments. I will also continue to help you make good financial decisions and avoid making inappropriate ones. I will teach you how to think like Warren Buffett. This is how I help my clients on the path to achieving their financial objectives.
Portfolio Management
We run concentrated portfolios with less than 30 individual names. Our research is never done, as we monitor fundamental company trends each quarter. We also monitor position sizes and estimates to our fair value targets regularly. We also have a Wish List of companies that have attractive economic characteristics that may be too over priced at current levels but, if given the opportunity, we would purchase at lower price levels. We are willing to hold cash during levels of high uncertainty in the market. We believe risk can be controlled by thinking about outcomes and being prepared for future events. It’s the investor’s job to bear risk intelligently. Progress Investment Planning’s value add is our rigorous independent research process and differentiated portfolio holdings, that combined, provide stable returns with lower risk to client portfolios.
Experienced Leadership
Dr. Christian G. Koch is the founder and portfolio manager for Progress Investment Planning. He has been on the buy side his entire investment career in equity research and portfolio management. His doctoral dissertation research at University of South Florida was focused on Warren Buffett and his long-term investment principles. Currently, Dr. Koch is also a Professor of Finance at NC State University where he teaches FIN 320 Principle of Finance and FIN 422 Investments & Portfolio Management. Dr. Koch received a bachelor’s degree in business administration at Stetson University in Deland, Florida; a master’s degree in business administration at Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, Florida; and he is a graduate of the advanced management program at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Defining Managed Separate Accounts
A separately managed account (SMA) is a portfolio of assets under the management of a professional investment firm. Such firms like Progress Investment Planning, are called Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs), and they operate under the regulatory auspices of the Investment Advisors Act of 1940. One or more portfolio managers are responsible for day-to-day investment decisions, supported by a team of analysts, operations and administrative staff. SMAs differ from pooled vehicles like mutual funds in that each portfolio is unique to a single account. This high level of customization is one of the main selling points of SMAs, particularly when it comes to individual taxable accounts. Portfolio transactions have expense and tax implications. With managed accounts, individual investors have a greater degree of control over these decisions.
“We believe that time, not timing, is the key to building wealth.”
Dr. Christian Koch, CFP®, CPWA®, CDFA®, RICP®
Join Our Team
We provide a career path in Wealth Management for both Financial Advisors and Equity Research Analysts.
Learn more about the Planning Career Path at Progress Investment Planning in this downloadable PDF: