A Question about Not Looking at One's Portfolio

[dualstow]

How did Harry Browne's original subscribers know that they had hit a rebalancing band if they only checked once a year?

I remember Harry saying something in the radio show about taking a look if you felt like something was going on with the markets & the economy, something you'd hear about without actively seeking it out. I suppose that's the closest thing I can think of.

It's hard enough not to look at my vp every day, several times a day. I cannot imagine having the ability to look up prices online -- something we could not do just two decades ago -- and not taking a peek a the % of each asset class once in a while. Or perhaps we have to note that when Harry first published his books, no one else could instantly check prices either, so it didn't matter.

I'm not a day trader, but the fact (or the perception) that everyone else is looking at prices means that I have to look, too. Even if we all have different rebalancing prices for gold.
Does that make sense?

[WildAboutHarry]

I look at my investments once a day or so, in conjunction with downloading checking accounts, etc.  I don't think it is the looking that is a potential problem, it is taking action on every market wiggle (or at least feeling some emotional tug when things go awry).

I cannot imagine having the ability to look up prices online -- something we could not do just two decades ago -- and not taking a peek a the % of each asset class once in a while. Or perhaps we have to note that when Harry first published his books, no one else could instantly check prices either, so it didn't matter.

Even though Harry published in the dark ages (probably on parchment) there were such things as newspapers that gave you a look back at the market's last 24 hours

[dualstow]

True, the main harm is in acting too often, not merely looking.

I think a nice solution these days is to set an email alert with Vanguard or Yahoo, notifying us of major movements.

there were such things as newspapers that gave you a look back at the market's last 24 hours

Of course.  And most people were more likely to have a newspaper subscription, pre-Internet. I remember looking up stock prices that way as a kid in the seventies. It was calmer then. No message boards screaming "What's going on with gold?!"

[dragoncar]

True, the main harm is in acting too often, not merely looking.

I think a nice solution these days is to set an email alert with Vanguard or Yahoo, notifying us of major movements.

there were such things as newspapers that gave you a look back at the market's last 24 hours

Of course.  And most people were more likely to have a newspaper subscription, pre-Internet. I remember looking up stock prices that way as a kid in the seventies. It was calmer then. No message boards screaming "What's going on with gold?!"

Sounds less calm, since you'd see a large drop in say gold and have no idea why or be able to discuss it with anyone (unless you did a party line with some other Ppers)

[dualstow]

Sounds less calm, since you'd see a large drop in say gold and have no idea why or be able to discuss it with anyone (unless you did a party line with some other Ppers)

Though I appreciate being able to connect with others online, I don't believe anyone else can explain sudden drops in the price any better than I can. Which is to say, we're all connected, but still clueless. Luckily, we talk about plenty of other things, things we can explain.

[frommi]

I look at it every half hour. I can`t stop me from doing it, but i instead try to live with it. But after changing from the PP to 100% dividend stocks with a value approach something has changed mentally. Everytime a stock falls and it is far below my calculated fair value, i think about where to allocate additional cash to buy more.

With the PP it should work the same way, but its hard when you don`t trust it or have no reasonable "fair" value for an asset class in mind.
Btw. watching dividends coming in each week is fun as hell and the last weeks where very good

[dualstow]

I look at it every half hour. I can`t stop me from doing it
...
Btw. watching dividends coming in each week is fun as hell and the last weeks where very good

I don't get dividends every week, but I did get caught up in that for a while. I have a google spreadsheet showing how much each stock pays per share, how much I should get per quarter and every year, and the total I should get each year and approximately each month.
I have google news alerts set to notify me of div increases, and there is great pleasure in updating the dividend amount & then watching the other cells' figures go up in turn. 

It's not a huge amount and they're nearly all qualified dividends at this point. Yield on holdings has gone down because the market has soared of course. Yield on cost is gradually approaching 5%, though nearly none of these stocks presently pay more than 2.8% on holdings.

Nothing wrong with watching that!

[ns2]

I've resolved to look at it as infrequently as possible, a state of mind I once had before the 2008 meltdown and want to get back to. The whole point of it, as MT and Craig like to emphasize is that it should give you a decent measure of peace of mind based on past performance that you don't have to stress out watching it daily. It's kind of ironic therefore that I found myself watching more often than I ever did when I first adopted it. This is probably due to the fact that I was making investments in things I was totally unfamiliar with (gold and LT bonds to be precise).

Haven't looked closely in about two months now but yesterday I was on my Fidelity account and I couldn't resist quickly clicking on my taxable account, all stock and cash, which was up about 34% and then my IRA, all LT and gold, which was down by about the same amount. Quick computations in my head told me it was a good baseline because I have other accounts, including my all-stock company 401k which is probably way up YTD so I'm probably in positive territory. Would rather have the 34% overall figure on all my investments but then again I used to like going to Disney World.