Why I watch prices daily despite being told not to do so.

[i4value]

I am a long-term value investor holding onto stocks for 6 to 8 years. The common advice to all value investors is not to listen to the daily news about the market or to check the stock price daily. The is because they are “noise”. And you can be distracted from your long-term view if you do so.

But I have a contrarian view. This is because quite a number of my stock gains is because of what I called transient price spikes. So, if you missed it, it may not come again. I have already mentioned about my experience with Poh Kong and Heitech Padu.

I give another 3 price charts as per below to illustrate my point – Naim, Cheetah and APB

In the case of Cheetah, it spiked and went away due to some speculative play.




In the case of Naim, I don’t know why it spiked recently but prices do not seem to be holding



For APB, I am not sure whether it will uptrend again.



My point is that I buy the stocks because they were under-valued. But I do not have control over events or rumours. If I missed it, it may not come again.

I watch daily prices so as not to miss the opportunity. But when I do this, I know why I am doing it and I don’t panic if I see price drops or succumb to other behavioural issues.

Yes, these were stocks that I have invested. Did I get the full benefit? Not really. Sometimes being too greedy is not good.

[Bibi]

There is a feature call stock price alert right? I think looking at stock prices daily is a habit rather than a need.

[i4value]

Given the way I invest, I am looking for > 100 % gain. So I am looking for spikes rather than a long uptrend. Besides I have seldom seen a long uptrend. Most of my gains have come from quick increases. I have avoided using price alerts as I find that it can be distracting. Rather I just scan all my portfolio once every few days. Most of the time nothing happens.