Wasron wrote:
Anyone else planning for a ‘No-look November’ this year?
I’ll be setting up my regular investments for the month on Friday and then leaving alone until Tuesday 1st December
Lockdowns and US election might make this seem like a bad time to go hands off, but looking every day for the last few months hasn’t helped much
Yeah, I'll give it a go.
I've nearly got through October too this year, as I started a little earlier just to see how I got on, and even with all the uncertainty and volatility this year, I'm doing OK to be honest. There was uncertainty and volatility last year too, if we remember...
I've got to say that since we started out trying this November thing a few years ago now, it's made a massive difference to me generally, even outside of that specific month, and I think it's just allowed me to acknowledge to myself that there's better things to do than think I'm adding any real value by keeping a 'daily watching brief' on my investments...
Sure, there's periods where closer visibility is required, even sometimes over relatively prolonged time-scales, but on the whole I think we tend to watch things out of habit, and it's a habit that's nice to get out of to be honest..
I just found myself asking "
What additional value did watching things like a hawk add over the past 7 days?", and if I was honest with myself, the answer was invariably "
None whatsoever"....
So what if an additional holding has gone up or down by 5% this week? At portfolio level it's generally just noise, diluted away by all the other variations in holding values, and that's why we diversify to start with, isn't it?
Why diversify, and then actively behave as if we're not?
The answer to that question has finally, and thankfully, hit home, and it all started with taking that month of November 'off' all those years ago...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess