Thursday, July 5, 2012

Updating Stock Info

When I talk about how well I have done in a stock, I am usually quoting information up to the end of the previous month. For example, when I talked about how well I was doing in Saputo (TSX-SAP) on June 27th, I was using the end of May figures. Unless sometime unusual has happened, I see no reason to quote how that stock is doing to the exact day.

I had started my review of Saputo as “I first bought this stock in 2006 and then some more, twice in 2007. To the end of May 2012, I have a return of 17.5%, with 2.24% coming from dividends and 15.26% coming from capital gain. Some 12.8% of my return is from dividends.”

I only update my stock information once a month. I use my monthly statements to update Quicken with dividend paid information and new stock prices. I find updating it more is a waste of time in the long run. Yes, valuation can fluctuate a lot, but they generally do not have a long term effect. I think you could go crazy my reviewing your investments too often.

I updated my spreadsheets on a stock just once a year, unless something happens that causes me to do otherwise. If a stock I follow is reported in the news as doing something usual for that particular stock, I might take another look.

I do take a look at what the TSX is doing every day. It least I try too. What I value is the TSX chart over the past year.

My point is that there was a 351 point drop or 2.99% drop in the market on Thursday, June 21st, 2012. Do you really think that the companies you invested in did something to cause this? Or, was this just caused by cranky investors on that day and it had nothing at all to do with the companies on the TSX.

No comments:

Post a Comment