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'No-look November'.....

A helpful place to also put any annual reports etc, of your own portfolios
Gengulphus
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93596

Postby Gengulphus » November 6th, 2017, 2:11 pm

CaptainFlack wrote:What I've found quite difficult with is news that mentions shares I hold. I'm also a news junkie ...

Maybe you also need a period of cold turkey from that? ;-)

Gengulphus

OLTB
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93601

Postby OLTB » November 6th, 2017, 2:55 pm

Well, it's my first 'proper' day of not checking a thing and the world hasn't collapsed...yet...

No HL website opened, no 'Stocks' app opened...

I am reliant on Lemonfool though and I hope that there aren't any topics opened up on the HYP board which get my fingers itching such as 'Massive Bid Offer for Carillion' :D

Now, back to Dorising.

Cheers, OLTB.

Itsallaguess
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93622

Postby Itsallaguess » November 6th, 2017, 4:22 pm

Well done to everyone who's made it so far. I also managed to be good over the weekend, and had another 'dry' day today as well, so we'll see how we get on.

For anyone who gave it a go and has now decided to take a look, don't be too hard on yourselves; you gave it a go and lasted longer than those that didn't....

One day at a time, chaps, onwards and upwards!

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93657

Postby Hariseldon58 » November 6th, 2017, 6:50 pm

I was interested in this thread as I normally glance at the FTSE and the S&P500 several times a week but only update my portfolio spreadsheet with prices 2 or 3 times a year.

I have a largely passive allocation and generally only trade annually to harvest capital gains/ reinvest dividends with a further round of dividend reinvestment at 6 month intervals.

The total value of the portfolio jumps around frequently by a six figure sum and I find it doesn’t help to think that I richer/poorer by such amounts too often !

Inactivity is positive for long term returns...

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93940

Postby CaptainFlack » November 7th, 2017, 5:57 pm

Okay, I'm actually finding this easier that I expected now I'm almost a week in. I've absolutely no idea how much paper money I've lost or gained.

There have been a few clues I've picked up, and for about two seconds I was wondering today if the news around UK retailers suffering the worst October since 2008 had impacted mine. Probably, but then my two retailers are more staples than fashion or electricals et cetera so they might not have fared too badly. Not a lot I can do anyway, and if they have dropped then it suits as one of them is one of my regular monthly buys. Not sure why I'm looking so negatively here, my usual guess work on which way a share will lurch on news or results is generally wrong anyway, they could have risen!

The urges to find out my portfolio value are definitely subsiding which is good news.

Cheers.

Capt. Flack

Itsallaguess
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93948

Postby Itsallaguess » November 7th, 2017, 6:12 pm

CaptainFlack wrote:
Okay, I'm actually finding this easier that I expected now I'm almost a week in. I've absolutely no idea how much paper money I've lost or gained.

There have been a few clues I've picked up, and for about two seconds I was wondering today if the news around UK retailers suffering the worst October since 2008 had impacted mine.

Probably, but then my two retailers are more staples than fashion or electricals et cetera so they might not have fared too badly. Not a lot I can do anyway, and if they have dropped then it suits as one of them is one of my regular monthly buys.

Not sure why I'm looking so negatively here, my usual guess work on which way a share will lurch on news or results is generally wrong anyway, they could have risen!

The urges to find out my portfolio value are definitely subsiding which is good news.


I'm in a similar position I think, and rather than thinking how long I'll be 'able to cope', I'm now actually asking myself a different question -

'When will I think I'll be that bothered that I think I need to look?'

Only a slight difference in outlook, I accept, but an important one I think given the regularity that I thought I was bothered in the past.

I'm really not sure how long this Zen-like state will go on for, but I do think that when this exercise is over, I think I'll be able to at the very least drop down to a more regular once-a-week view, with no bother at all.

Thanks for the regular updates chaps, I think it helps to continue knowing that people are still hanging in there and finding it less difficult than first imagined.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

OLTB
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93955

Postby OLTB » November 7th, 2017, 6:26 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:The urges to find out my portfolio value are definitely subsiding which is good news.




It's definitely getting easier! I have seen the SSE news today and just thought, 'meh' - it doesn't actually mean I need to instigate any action, so I shrug my shoulders and carry on carrying on.

As you were.

Cheers, OLTB.

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#93985

Postby Raptor » November 7th, 2017, 8:19 pm

My problem has nothing to do with my portfolio value. It is the "itch" to update/upgrade my spreadsheets with all the good stuff on the financial software board. :)

Which means waiting till end of month.....
Raptor

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#94090

Postby mickeypops » November 8th, 2017, 10:15 am

My "itch" is that we are retiring next June, and although the value of our pot is way past what I forecast five years ago when I put our retirement plan in place, I can't help myself wondering quite how high it's going to reach. In the meantime we keep putting all we can away each month....

Itsallaguess
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#94528

Postby Itsallaguess » November 9th, 2017, 7:17 pm

Well, if last week's three-day test was a starter, then this week's full 5-day market will be a great 'main meal' to get behind us, for those who are left holding in there.

I must admit that still working full time during market opening-hours takes a lot of the pressure away for a quick-peek, although there was rarely a dinner-time that I didn't check a few Google Finance prices for a couple of minutes, but I've managed to keep my nerve....

I've had a couple of testing moments in the past couple of days, as I'm still receiving my company-specific RNS releases into my emails via the free Investegate website, and a couple of holdings have had possibly price-changing news. Nothing major-major, but certainly very interesting stuff, which has been difficult for me to ignore. I've managed to do so, but this was a new challenge to me for the past couple of days that I've not had to deal with until now.

I'm still holding on, mind, and it's Friday tomorrow and if we squint, we're nearly a third of the way through November already....

Hold steady people! Onwards and upwards!

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#94655

Postby CaptainFlack » November 10th, 2017, 9:34 am

Itsallaguess wrote:I've had a couple of testing moments in the past couple of days, as I'm still receiving my company-specific RNS releases into my emails via the free Investegate website, and a couple of holdings have had possibly price-changing news. Nothing major-major, but certainly very interesting stuff, which has been difficult for me to ignore. I've managed to do so, but this was a new challenge to me for the past couple of days that I've not had to deal with until now.

I'm still holding on, mind, and it's Friday tomorrow and if we squint, we're nearly a third of the way through November already....

Hold steady people! Onwards and upwards!

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


It has been a very difficult three days. Two, if not three (I'm trying to forget) shares I hold have been in the news this week. All of them, according to the media, having posted worse or conflicting figures which have left me with no idea, but some apprehension, as to the direction they have travelled in. I didn't not read the news items, and one share I have has taken a small tumble as the early trading data was published. Personally, the fact I haven't gone straight to my portfolio to garner the actual figures is good news.

In general though, I am thinking less and less about what's going on. I think that with a week where I have no news affecting my shares, there will be no urges.

Next week, the primary challenge will be when I see the monthly payment go out of my bank account and I know where it's heading. That will be the first time since this experiment started that there will be updates to my spreadsheets which I need to ignore for now.

Cheers.

Capt. Flack

Itsallaguess
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#94719

Postby Itsallaguess » November 10th, 2017, 1:22 pm

CaptainFlack wrote:
It has been a very difficult three days. Two, if not three (I'm trying to forget) shares I hold have been in the news this week. All of them, according to the media, having posted worse or conflicting figures which have left me with no idea, but some apprehension, as to the direction they have travelled in. I didn't not read the news items, and one share I have has taken a small tumble as the early trading data was published.

Personally, the fact I haven't gone straight to my portfolio to garner the actual figures is good news.

In general though, I am thinking less and less about what's going on. I think that with a week where I have no news affecting my shares, there will be no urges.


Yes, I think that's more or less where I am today, having gone through a similar process where some key news items have not led me to 'have' to take a look to see how things have been affected.

I also agree that getting through such a week will be a key enabler if this is going to be a longer-term process for me, to help steer me away from a much more regular habit of keeping an eye on things so microscopically, so I'm glad it's happened early on during this experiment as it's been a really good test just on it's own.

CaptainFlack wrote:
Next week, the primary challenge will be when I see the monthly payment go out of my bank account and I know where it's heading. That will be the first time since this experiment started that there will be updates to my spreadsheets which I need to ignore for now.


Similar situation again for me, where I usually transfer funds from wages into my accounts, and also tend to update my dividend-pot amounts on my spreadsheet, and it's been a good test not to 'have' to do so....I've still done the transfers, but just not done any updating, as that would have exposed me to the other data that I'm trying to keep away from....

Now we're a week and a bit in, and whilst I'm still wondering how long I'll be able to keep this up, I'm also allowing myself to think of what I want a post-experiment scenario to look like, and whether I want to try to bounce down to a once-a-week wrap-up or something else. I think doing a Friday wrap-up sounds like a good idea going forward, and would still mean a cut-down of about 90% of my portfolio monitoring through the rest of the week.

Have you had any ideas about that yourself?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#95072

Postby Itsallaguess » November 12th, 2017, 6:09 am

One thing I meant to discuss yesterday, for anyone still keeping away from portfolio activity/visibility, would be to ask if they could record the percentage difference between overall portfolio value when they last looked, and then when they next look, and also recording the length of time between snapshots?

I think that would be an interesting set of metrics for us to be able to look back on, and perhaps for us to even use as justifiable data to prove whether it would or wouldn't have mattered had we not run this little experiment.

Potentially, to be able to say that any time period without constant monitoring mattered little in terms of overall portfolio value would be a good basis to help convince ourselves that we may as well ramp down our monitoring drum-beat.

I'd also actually be interested in a per-holding percentage difference as well, just for completeness, and I'll be recording those value differences here in percentage terms for my own individual portfolio holdings if anyone is interested. I won't be identifying holding details, other than a list of holding percentage differences, so I hope such anonymised data wouldn't be an issue for anyone else to provide if they are willing and able to do so?

I appreciate that this second bit of work would involve a little more time, so I can't of course expect anyone else to do that here, but it would be great if anyone getting this far could at least record the overall portfolio percentage difference, and post their findings on this thread, along with the time-scale the difference was seen between?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

OLTB
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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#95079

Postby OLTB » November 12th, 2017, 8:31 am

No problem to me - I'll just look at when the HYP was topped up at the beginning of November and, as I won't have changed any of the details, look again at the beginning of December when my next top up is due.

Cheers, OLTB.

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#95523

Postby CaptainFlack » November 14th, 2017, 8:29 am

Itsallaguess wrote:One thing I meant to discuss yesterday, for anyone still keeping away from portfolio activity/visibility, would be to ask if they could record the percentage difference between overall portfolio value when they last looked, and then when they next look, and also recording the length of time between snapshots?

I think that would be an interesting set of metrics for us to be able to look back on, and perhaps for us to even use as justifiable data to prove whether it would or wouldn't have mattered had we not run this little experiment.

Potentially, to be able to say that any time period without constant monitoring mattered little in terms of overall portfolio value would be a good basis to help convince ourselves that we may as well ramp down our monitoring drum-beat.

I'd also actually be interested in a per-holding percentage difference as well, just for completeness, and I'll be recording those value differences here in percentage terms for my own individual portfolio holdings if anyone is interested. I won't be identifying holding details, other than a list of holding percentage differences, so I hope such anonymised data wouldn't be an issue for anyone else to provide if they are willing and able to do so?

I appreciate that this second bit of work would involve a little more time, so I can't of course expect anyone else to do that here, but it would be great if anyone getting this far could at least record the overall portfolio percentage difference, and post their findings on this thread, along with the time-scale the difference was seen between?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


That works for me and is easy to achieve.

It's weird, I am simply not thinking about my portfolio anymore, other than defined triggers like watching money leave my bank account (today). Even knowing dividends are due in I'm managing to ignore which is good news as I was hanging on waiting for them to come in, and then waiting for them to be reinvested which was an utter waste of time.

I'm fairly confident that from the start of December, I'll either have a cursory glance each week on a Friday or at the end of the month when I do a session to update my records with any changes that month.

Cheers.

Capt. Flack

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#95577

Postby kiloran » November 14th, 2017, 12:28 pm

I'm waiting for 00:00:05 on 1st December when I expect the Yahoo server to crash due to being inundated with requests :D

--kiloran

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#96291

Postby Itsallaguess » November 16th, 2017, 6:52 pm

Well, another market-week almost over, and I hope we're all still managing to keep away from those portfolio-views?

I've again had some fairly important updates from a few holdings and I'm keen to see if any price-action has accompanied them, but I'm managing to stick to my guns and ride out these itches fairly easily, although there's also a sense that the portfolio value will have swung around so much that I'm almost scared to look now. That's a good thing, given the plan-intentions, right? :D

17th November tomorrow chaps, so past the half-way mark now....

Well done to everyone who's made it this far.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#96413

Postby CaptainFlack » November 17th, 2017, 8:09 am

I'm still avoiding looking and I'm genuinely finding it easier than I expected.

It also helps to avoid reading too much here as well.

The thought of either having made significant paper losses or substantial paper gains is also something quite scary (especially the losses), but I'm still convinced that on my past actions, I wouldn't have done anything anyway. I think that losses will lead to a 'oh well' attitude, and I won't be particularly concerned, whereas, gains will lead to a 'YES, get in there' type elation as I congratulate myself on how good am I at investing.

Time will tell.

Cheers.

Capt. Flack

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#96475

Postby OLTB » November 17th, 2017, 12:21 pm

Carillion's news is helping today - for some reason, I don't want to look...

Cheers, OLTB.

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Re: 'No-look November'.....

#96496

Postby Itsallaguess » November 17th, 2017, 1:39 pm

CaptainFlack wrote:
I'm still avoiding looking and I'm genuinely finding it easier than I expected.


Me too, and it's also come as a personal surprise as to how easy it's been.

It's not been easy, but it's also certainly not been as difficult as I expected it to be.

9 more full trading days until the end of November.

Do you know what? I think I'm going to manage it!

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


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