I used to think that people who obsessed over the stock market on a daily basis were somewhat silly. You have to keep your money in for the long term, or so I thought, so there’s nothing to be gained by demanding updates twice an hour. But now I’m investing for the first time, and I can’t stop clicking on Yahoo Finance to see how the S&P 500 is doing. It’s not that I’m planning to move any money around based on day-to-day events. It’s rather that having the total amount of money I own continuously and upredictably change feels weird. It used to be that my money was quite predictable. When I deposited a paycheck, it went up. When I wrote a check, it went down. Now I’m making and losing money that has nothing to do with any of my actions. I may make more money off stocks today than I earn at my job, and it’s all because of a profit report from Lucent, or a drought in South America, or fluctuations in zinc prices.
It’s funny how having a stake in the market tends to focus one’s attention. I’m in my early 50s and have retirement investments that are currently worth more than my house. I trade stocks or change mutual fund investments no more than a couple of times a year, but I have all of my investments in a portfolio on my Yahoo home page, and I look at it at least once a day.
I usually check once a day. I check my advisory service (Value Line) every Friday, to see if any of my stocks fell to a 3 rating. Two of them did, a week or two ago, so I sold. Both of them did very well. Now, I’m looking to pick some new ones.
I don’t jump at every twitch of the market. I do 2 to 4 trades a year.
I have it up on my Yahoo page, so it’s always there, and I look every day.
However, that doesn’t mean I react or get upset or happy about it, or that I move in an out willy nilly.
I used to be more active. Now, I’m trying just to buy stuff and let it sit. I’ve moved most of my old, risky, “get rich quick” :rolleyes: stocks into ETFs and big, dividend-paying blue chips.
I usually check the dow and such every day. My own stocks I check maybe once a month. I tend to be a buy and hold invester so I don’t need to check my individual stocks so often.
When I have just recently bought a new stock, I check several times a day. After a few weeks I calm down a bit and only check 2-3 times a week. Until I have enough cash to buy another stock, then it’s back to obsessive Yahoo finance reloading.
Fairly frequently. It depends on the actual day. I usually have CNBC in the background, so I’ll probably see stock info 100 times per day. Other days, I’ll at least check the Dow and the NASDAQ at the end of the trading day.
I look at the Dow several times a day and the Wilshire 4500. I also look at the government bond yields.
My retirement money is in several different funds, and I’ve done pretty well in the last year. And, since it’s only 6 years, 10 months and 15 days until I retire, I’m damned well paying attention!
2 or 3 times a week. I do try to read CNN Money on line for a quick gather of info.
Sometimes this backfires. After reading a good short article on Netflix, I came home to tell my wife that I thought the stock was undervalued and we should jump on it. I had read in the article it was at $10. When I pulled a quote on it however it was at $25 and hasn’t been at $10 for months, I missed and important phrase in the article. Well at least I was right about $10 being a great bargain, now if only I had noticed that back last March.
I’m in my early 50s and have retirement investments that are currently worth more than my house. I trade stocks or change mutual fund investments no more than a couple of times a year, but I have all of my investments in a portfolio on my Yahoo home page, and I look at it at least once a day.