How often do you check your stocks?

[Billionaire Boy]

I check mine everyday, as I assume most people do on this board. With changing market conditions, it is risky to leave your portfolio alone for too long.

I have an aging mother who is very much from the old school of stock trading and refuses to look at her stocks online, and doesn't seem to call her broker much. I know for a fact she has an incredible amount of money. I feel so sorry for her. I honestly don't know how to help her. I have offered to help her manage her stocks but she has turned me down. I don't blame her though, she still thinks I'm 12.

[aiki14]

I get monthly statements from my portfolio managers and that's good enough for my investment accounts. I am checking my trading positions on a minute by minute basis.
Your mom is probably more right than you are for her situation, and I would be more concerned on an asset allocation basis for an elderly investor rather than a position by position basis.
As an aside, if you are correct about the amount of her assets, maybe you should stop bugging her about her stocks and bring her flowers once in a while, and remind her how your siblings never do anything for her like you do, or how your sisters husband is a deadbeat and your brother is really bad with money. :wink:

[bobwatford123]

Way too often. It's like an addiction with me and probably many others and the internet now makes it all too easy. I become obsessed sometimes and have even in the past forced myself to take time off from watching my stocks. It's just not healthy. I'm sure there are worse addictions but I don't think it (or the internet in general) is a healthy lifestyle.

If my brokerage had an 'if then' option ie if a trade is filled automatically place an order to sell it at x amount I probably wouldn't be so bad. I'm in Canada and I don't think any offer that though. I should probably just get alerts sent to my cell phone and I wouldn't have to watch so closely but I haven't found a free service with alerts that are reliable to received in real time.

[netwrangler]

I check on the stocks everyday. Moreover, I check my alerts everyday.

Since I am a covered call investor, I am often trading options on top of a long investment position. Covered calls lead to protective puts and to collars. All that takes a certain amount of husbandry. It's important that I set alerts that will direct my attention to a position when the price of the stock or option approaches key levels.

Stop and stop-limit orders don't work as well for me because they execute at market. When I trade at market I'm taking the wrong end of the spread. Better for me to anticipate — to set an alert to a level that fires before I would need to act. That gives me time, which can be important in getting the best execution.

Alerts age and need to be updated often. I find reviewing alerts makes me review the logic for setting them, and that's is a good thing.

BTW: I try to name my alerts in a way that helps me remember why they are there. There's nothing more frustrating than having an alert fire, getting a "beep", loading the security into my trading window, and asking myself, "Why on earth do I care about that?" :oops:

[Billionaire Boy]

As an aside, if you are correct about the amount of her assets, maybe you should stop bugging her about her stocks and bring her flowers once in a while, and remind her how your siblings never do anything for her like you do, or how your sisters husband is a deadbeat and your brother is really bad with money. :wink:

The only problem is my brother is a financially successful saint and my siblings all do way more personal stuff than I.
Flowers are a good idea though.

As for alerts, yeah, probably 90% of the information that comes through is unimportant, but when you're living with your parents like I am and looking for a job anything is better than watching tv all day!