This week wasn’t the best week in terms of investment gains. The Dow lost 3.63%, the Nasdaq lost 2.75%, the S&P500 lost 2.68% and the Mergent’s Dividend Achievers lost 2.75%. Pretty much all down for the week. As a comparison, my portfolio (according to Microsoft Money) was only down 2.2%. I guess I did better than all the indexes, which is a good thing, but not something I worry about too much. At least on such as short-term basis.
Ginsberg over at The Earning Curve talks about how often he checks his portfolio. I used to do that but it drove me crazy. I even found that I was making irrational decisions because of it. I was so obsessed with my performance on a daily basis that if things went down for a day, I had a tendency to react and either sell or buy something, without really thinking too much about it. I have since stopped watching it so closely. That is not to say that I don’t monitor my portfolio, I just do not fret about the day-to-day price changes that happen and get too worked up about it.
Here is how I monitor my portfolio. There is nothing fancy about it and most of all, it doesn’t take me a crazy amount of time:
- Every quarter, I compare my returns to the S&P500 index and the TSX index (in Canada). My goal of course is to beat it, but if I am under it but close I don’t worry about it too much. I do analyze my allocation and performance of individual stocks to see if there have been any trends over the past few quarters. If so, then I will come up with a course of action (which usually is to sit tight).
- Keep track of the news results, especially quarterly reports, for each one of my holdings. I am not pouring over the reports, just scanning them looking for key items that may be of concern.
- Every year, I rerun each holding’s numbers in my Shareowner’s Association software package to make sure everything is trending in the right direction in terms of fundamentals. I keep each year’s results in an electronic file so that I can compare my results year over year.
That is pretty much it – nothing too complicated or time consuming. I enjoy doing it. If I didn’t, I would most likely just buy some index funds and let them coast.
P.S. Pretty good week for dividends – received dividends from both Coca-Cola and Merck. These dividends are awaiting re-investment into more shares of each stock on the next purchase date at my broker.
Hey, I appreciate the mention in your post there. I wish I had your discipline in observing my investments. I’m thinking it’s one of those things that will come with time.
Like the new site, but it isn’t displaying correctly in ie for me…the blog entries don’t begin until after both side bar information has finished.