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Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: MgoSam on May 28, 2013, 08:34:32 PM

Title: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: MgoSam on May 28, 2013, 08:34:32 PM
Hey,

How often do you check your mutual funds? I have no intention of withdrawing any money for the forseeable future, but I find myself either checking how they did at least every few days or find myself checking out how the market did at the end of the day? I realize that this isn't a rational thing to do.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: icefr on May 28, 2013, 09:01:15 PM
Depends on how bored I am. If I'm reading more books, I don't check on them nearly as often ;)
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: MgoSam on May 28, 2013, 09:07:26 PM
What are you reading right now?
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: JamesAt15 on May 28, 2013, 09:09:39 PM
At least once a month - I update my Net Worth and Asset Allocation spreadsheets monthly, after shuffling my payday money around.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: FlorenceMcGillicutty on May 28, 2013, 09:11:16 PM
I'm the worst. I check them (and my checking accounts and credit cards and stock prices) every day. It's not healthy.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: Mr Mark on May 28, 2013, 09:16:38 PM
More often when it's going up, perhaps 2x a month. Always curious to see how the different AA sectors respond.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: icefr on May 28, 2013, 09:40:37 PM
More often when it's going up, perhaps 2x a month. Always curious to see how the different AA sectors respond.

It's kind of fun watching how different they are some months.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: icefr on May 28, 2013, 09:42:35 PM
What are you reading right now?

Currently reading the Hangman's Daughter. About 33% in. I'm working on going through the backlog of books I bought on my Kindle and never got around to reading... So sort of free books?
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: Lans Holman on May 28, 2013, 10:31:01 PM
Maybe my least favorite thing about mint is seeing them all the time.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: Adventine on May 28, 2013, 10:39:21 PM
Pretty much every day. It's fun because my local stock market's been breaking records pretty much every week for the past 6 months now. It took a small dip, recently, though. I like to think of it as training my mind to be calm while watching the eventual cyclic crash.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: martynthewolf on May 29, 2013, 01:55:17 AM
Like some of the other posters here, I check at the start of everyday... I also have a google finance window open so I can keep tabs on the index I'm invested in. I don't check it very often though
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: cerberusss on May 29, 2013, 01:57:35 AM
Isn't the whole idea of these funds that you just check them once a year?
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: JamesAt15 on May 29, 2013, 02:08:57 AM
I don't know about once per year, but yes, one should only check on them occasionally.

Unfortunately, many of us can't help ourselves and we check on them more often.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: Adventine on May 29, 2013, 05:27:17 AM
^Great article with sensible points. But I still feel a little thrill of accomplishment when I see an increase in my net worth. Maybe because I only started investing last year. The "I'm making money doing NOTHING!" feeling is still very strong.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: smalllife on May 29, 2013, 05:37:25 AM
I check once a month when I update my net worth chart.  Occasionally I'll log in for something more (or to make a contribution - everything is in the Roth) but not usually.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: OzzieandHarriet on May 29, 2013, 06:58:54 AM
We finally opened one at Vanguard with the minimum $3k this month -- I've checked a few times, and we've already lost $25! Better not to look, probably.
Title: Re: How often check mutual funds?
Post by: Villanelle on May 29, 2013, 08:24:03 AM
I check quarterly or when I have a larger-ish ($1000k+) lump sum to invest.  That's so that I can update my freakishly detailed spreadsheet and use the investment to help balance my portfolio and steer it back toward where I want it to be. 

Other than that, I simply don't care what they are worth.  Husband and I are at least 12 years from "retirement" (and he will almost certainly want to work far longer than that, in some capacity), so the balances just don't matter, and I am not in anything risky enough that I am going to mess with it based on performance.