How Often do you Check your Investments?

[Midpack]

I am guilty there too.........I have read the prospectuses of every financial instrument I have ever recommended to anyone...........

Even my engineer clients think I'm nuts...........

I'm impressed (really)...

 

[Retire Soon]

A psychiatrist would probably diagnose my everyday scrutiny of my investment portfolio as an obsession, but, ask me if I really care.

 

[retire@40]

I check daily, summarize monthly.

 

[clifp]

Well, it depends on what you mean by "check"

If you mean research, read prospectuses, etc that would be all the time.

If you mean look at the values, that would be almost never. believe that encourages emotions which have no place in my investment strategy.

I am not sure I follow this. How do you know if an investment is a good one if you don't know the price??

 

[Gsquared]

I use Quicken, and it is one click to get a portfolio update and info on any distributions/dividends. Quicken has its ideosyncracies, but overall seems to be a pretty good tool for this.

There are several references here to "updating my spreadsheet" from daily to quarterly. For those of you using this approach:

1. What are your inputs?
2. What are your outputs (displays, calculations, i.e. what do you look at?)
3. What decisions do you guide by your spreadsheet tracking and calculations?

Thanks!

 

[saluki9]

I am not sure I follow this. How do you know if an investment is a good one if you don't know the price??

I guess I should clarify. Most of the things I own I am also buying for at least one of our firms clients. Therefor I am almost always aware of the prices on the publicly traded stuff I own (mostly dimensional funds). I just never go through and look at all my positions and run my net worth.

IMHO people put way to much value on todays price. I think it's pure insanity to look at the value of your investments daily. All you are seeing is the opinion of the last guy who decided to sell (buy) today. I couldn't live my life that way.

Oh, and yes If I buy something for somebody I do read the prospectus, from cover to cover.

 

[aida2003]

I look at the overall picture once a year quite seriously (yearly performance, whether rebalancing is needed, etc.), but I check account balances (401k's, RothIRA's, and taxable) once a quarter.

 

[CuppaJoe]

"It depends." During a bull market when I was nearing the end of the accumulation phase, I checked so seldom that when the Dow hit the mid-11,000s for the first time, I was taken by surprise. During the '70s I was just learning about investing, never checked the papers, just read everything the fund company sent me, paying particular attention to the notes to the financial statements, largest holdings, and some of the charts. I check my NW sporatically now but have checked the NAVs daily since mid-July '07.

 

[SecondCor521]

I use Quicken, and it is one click to get a portfolio update and info on any distributions/dividends. Quicken has its ideosyncracies, but overall seems to be a pretty good tool for this.

There are several references here to "updating my spreadsheet" from daily to quarterly. For those of you using this approach:

1. What are your inputs?
2. What are your outputs (displays, calculations, i.e. what do you look at?)
3. What decisions do you guide by your spreadsheet tracking and calculations?

Thanks!

I use Quicken and Excel. My process is to update Quicken, and then I copy some numbers from Quicken to Excel to get some more customized data than Quicken is able to provide.

I update Q and E daily, although I'm trying to wean myself to weekly since nothing changes that much and I usually end up seeing more "noise" than information. I never trade on what I see in my spreadsheets either, I'm a LTBH.

As to your questions:

1. The data that gets transferred over from Q to E is basically two things: the current valuation of all my assets and liabilities and my last six months expenditures by top level Quicken category (Kids, Taxes, Insurance, Auto, Food, etc.).

2. For outputs, I have a worksheet dedicated to each question I am trying to answer. For example, what is my liquidity situation? What are my life insurance needs? How are my kids' college funds coming along? How are my FIRE plans coming along? I also have a "dashboard" which pulls data from the other sheets, combines it with my target goals, and uses Excel's conditional formatting to tell me if I'm in good shape or not (green = good, red = pay attention).

3. Decisions I make or am making based on my spreadsheets include: (1) How much cash I can safely invest in my taxable Vanguard account and still have enough cash cushion for emergencies? (2) Do I need to buy life insurance? (3) Do I need to increase or decrease the rate of savings into my kids' college accounts? (4) Should I suck it up and stay in my soul-sucking but good paying job, find a different, more highly paid soul-sucking job, or should I go do what I want at a lower salary? (5) What kinds of offers are worth my time to do in my 0% BT game? (6) How much overtime should I work at my day job?

2Cor521

 

[ziggy29]

I usually see it updated 3-4 times a week in my financial software, but not specifically to check the investments. It's usually to enter checks and debit/credit card purchases so I know how much I have left in those accounts (and how much I've charged in the month), and the investment balances get updated with online quotes. I do some updating of my FIRE clock based on the current value, though.

As far as really looking at my investments for the purposes of rebalancing or making other investment decisions, I probably only look at it about once a month to see if anything is out of whack.

 

[Ronstar]

I do a Quicken update monthly, but visual check my 401k a few times a month.

 

[jazz4cash]

I am guilty there too.........I have read the prospectuses of every financial instrument I have ever recommended to anyone...........

Even my engineer clients think I'm nuts...........

You mean most FA's don't read prospectuses? That's very surprising to me.

 

[RetiringwithaPlan]

Like waiting for water to boil

Check too often and you are likely to adjust when you shouldn't (such as sell on the way down) and react to news that has happened if only moments ago.

You have to ask yourself: what you made you buy in the first place? Was it the track record of the company - a backward looking consideration that you used for future growth or was it the potential of future growth - an optimism that shouldn't change on whim?

If it is a mutual fund you are buying, check quarterly for any drift in style. If you have built a portfolio of stocks, do as all the great investors have done: go to the movies or engage in some other pleasant distraction. Ignore the day-to-day. Once you get in the habit of checking daily, weekly, or even monthly, you will no longer consider the tax consequences, the commissions, or even the reasons you purchased the investment in the first place. You will be answering the call of marketplace, not your original reasoning.

 

[Retire Soon]

I like the system that Vanguard has available. I've stored my user-names and passwords at their site for my bank accounts. When I log on, I know exactly what my total portfolio because they automatically update my outside bank balances. With Vanguard, I also have free access to Financial Engines, which I use several times a month. I also use Morningstar on a daily basis to help satisfy my obsession for daily stock/bond balance changes. Several times a year, I download transactions to Quicken from Vanguard to see how horrible my tax situation has become. Later, during tax season, I upload from Quicken to TurboTax to take care of my federal and state returns.

 

[ziggy29]

Check too often and you are likely to adjust when you shouldn't (such as sell on the way down) and react to news that has happened if only moments ago.

Actually, if you are rebalancing a fixed asset allocation, you'd do the opposite: BUY on the way down while selling the assets that have been outperforming. But unless you have a specific time or percentage trigger for rebalancing, you are introducing an element of emotion and "gut feeling" to your investment decisions, which probably isn't a good idea.

 

[FinanceDude]

You mean most FA's don't read prospectuses? That's very surprising to me.

Well, what I meant was "cover-to-cover". Trust me, it's pretty dry reading. I am sure a fair number of FAs skim the document, but I'm too anal not to read the whole thing..........

 

[saluki9]

You mean most FA's don't read prospectuses? That's very surprising to me.

It shouldn't be.

Do you think all doctors read those long documents that come in the medication bottles?

 

[jazz4cash]

I find the analogies between doctors and FA's to be inappropriate. Doctors use a desk reference that summarizes the key characteristics of medicines they prescribe. Furthermore there is a significant approval process before these are ever offered for sale and pharmacists are supposed to offer another level of safety. something comparable for FA's?

 

[outtarentals]

I check my Schwab account balances daily. If I'm out driving and hear on the radio that the market is down - I know my balances will be down. If the market is up, my balances will be up.

A question for the hexperts - what does that mean? I am assuming that my accounts must be tied to something that's going up and down? But what?

As far as the little workhorse rental houses are concerned - I rarely give them a thought. The rent comes in every month regular as clockwork from the happy tenants - and it doesn't seem to matter what the houses are worth - the rent stays the same - even goes up a bit from time to time. That's a nice feeling.

 

[retire@40]

I check my Schwab account balances daily. If I'm out driving and hear on the radio that the market is down - I know my balances will be down. If the market is up, my balances will be up.

A question for the hexperts - what does that mean? I am assuming that my accounts must be tied to something that's going up and down? But what?

It's called the Beta Coefficient.

 

[outtarentals]

It's called the Beta Coefficient.

AHA!! I was afraid of that! (Tongue in cheek here)

Thank you Retireat40 - I can see why you are managing to retire at 40!
I was thinking it might be the S&P500 since it seems to follow so closely.

However, you've given me a thought - next time I talk to my FA I'll casually say,

"Well now, FA, this Beta Coefficient thing doesn't seem to be working. Maybe we better try something else".

 

[freebird5825]

i maintain my portfolio share stats using M*'s tracker tool. it is helpful to determine performance in bull/bear and help keep me on track with overall AA.
i like their XRay tool.
i check weekly, but not every single week. lately quite a bit.

 

[bigla]

I check it weekly

While I watch the overall markets most everyday, come Friday evening when all the funds have been updated, I enter them into my Quicken investment file and see how they have been doing in past week as well as YTD and past year. Once every couple of weeks, using an Excel spreadsheet I created, I check my allocation percentages against my targets.
Fortunately, I am older and wiser and do not get crazy over the daily gyrations of the market as well as the overall gloominess these days - this too shall pass.
Larry

 

[laurinsane]

I would probably saying weekly to monthly. It's more whenever I get the itch to check and see how things are going.

 

[Running_Man]

I look at results daily but only tabulate total values monthly.