Comments on: Don’t check your stocks every day

By: matt

matt — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:04:46 +0000

Just go with companies you think will do well and stick with them and build up over time, the HUGE players in this game are rock solid stable throughout the most insane economic insanity. Fear is what screws so many of us over. That being said if you see a stock that just sucks, don’t be scared to just sell. Don’t try wasting time saving a stock that’s going down the tubes by compensating your cash and buying more. Decide in advance how much you’re willing to lose and go with that. If its a small amount and your just getting started who cares, if its huge then set yourself protection points that you can live with. The beauty of stocks even though it is kind of a form of gambling is that you can protect yourself with limits, you don’t have to lose it all – buy you can make endless amounts of money.

By: shriki

shriki — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 02:37:40 +0000

I’m 16 and want to know when is the best time to buy and sell stocks? It’s kind of a smart gamble but I hear that a lot of the people who stick to a company, make wise decisions, and are patience, tend to get the most out of the stock market.

By: Allan Drake

Allan Drake — Fri, 06 Oct 2006 04:43:39 +0000

You know why he said that the users that check their stocks everyday on their system are crazy? Because he makes more money money from inactivity fees. He wants them to forget and get charged 40 dollars every quarter.

By: John

John — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:30:54 +0000

I probably check my stocks twice a day – not because I am always on the verge of buying or selling something, but just because I enjoy saying “ooh, I’m rich!” or “sh*t, I’m poor!” to my laptop. My laptop likes the extra conversation, too.

But seriously, it’s not that bad to just stay on top of your stocks. The whole process takes me maybe 30 seconds a day – I just click on my bookmarked Yahoo! Finance profile and see what’s out there. Plus if you have a portfolio with Yahoo! they automatically ferret out financial news articles that mention your companies, so I can take another 10 seconds to check if any of the headlines seem worth looking into.

But as you said, I follow my investments with this level of interest because I view it as a hobby as well as as an investment. Still, while it’s not as sound a strategy as long-term buy-and-hold investing, money can be made (and massively lost, of course) in shorter term stock buying. I made 25% in about a month this summer riding a wave of hype with Harris & Harris (TINY) and then selling it when I thought it had gone up too much too quickly – info I guessed at from my compulsive daily stock-checking.

By: Ken L.

Ken L. — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 16:01:19 +0000

I do watch my investments nearly daily. But I don’t get freaked out by what they are or are not doing on a daily basis. I review my portfolio quarterly and don’t make changes more frequent than that. I may not even make changes on a quarterly basis. But I find it interesting to watch on a near daily basis. It doesn’t bother me or make me anxious.

Are you saying that it is wrong to watch it daily or that it is only wrong to take action based on daily observations?

By: Brian Carr

Brian Carr — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 03:23:26 +0000

This is great advice. I used to be someone who checked my stocks on an almost hourly basis – and it made me a worse investor. Now, I trust my research and my gut and stick with my trades. Obviously, if something unexpected happens, you have to react, but other than that, you should be in it for the long term.

By: Buddha52

Buddha52 — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:59:18 +0000

This may have been covered before…. But besides IWTYTBR, what blogs are people reading?

By: Jack W.

Jack W. — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 19:04:50 +0000

Tark, I think you missed the point of the article you referenced.

Ramit was advocating that we not dump stocks simply because they show a decline, even a large one. Part of the reasoning behind this was that if you simply dump your stocks when they’re low, chances are you will miss some of the biggest increase days. The article points out that over a 10 year period, missing out on the 5 biggest days would have reduced your return by 22.65%.

Monitoring your stock portfolio balances every day isn’t going to help you spot the “big days”. So, I don’t think his advice is contradictory.

By: Hawk

Hawk — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:55:30 +0000

I think that checking stocks continually is driven by whatever motivates people to check their RSS feeds, email, phone messages, etc. If it’s possible for something to happen, then it’s theoretically worth seeing if something happened.

It’s not realistically worth it. I went on vacation for a week and just the thought of coming back to all the things I usually keep tabs on made me anxious.

By: Tark

Tark — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:20:50 +0000

Actually, I seem to remember someone telling me that missing the big days can have a huge impact http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/archives/2006/08/stocks_are_down_what_to_do.html