Weekend Reading – How often do you check your portfolio?

Weekend Reading – How often do you check your portfolio?

Welcome to a new Weekend Reading edition about this interesting subject: how often do you check your portfolio?

I answer this question for readers in this edition but before that, a few recent reads:

I wrote about some of my favourite Canadian Dividend ETFs for income here.

Top Canadian Dividend ETFs

And…

In case you missed this lower-cost retirement income story, can you really retire on $500,000 invested?

Weekend Reading – Can you really retire on $500,000?

Weekend Reading – How often do you check your portfolio?

Reference: our projected annual income for 2026 – we will see if we can get there??

Inspiration for this edition came from Ben Carlson’s post here.

In Ben’s article:

“If you’re a long-term investor, you’re going to be living through a ton of new all-time highs in your investing lifecycle.”

How true!

I’ve been at this blog for almost as long as I’ve been a DIY investor – blogging for about 17 years. I’ve seen a number of wild market cycles and I’m sure I will see many more.

Ben’s post outlined a few “hard and fast rules” in checking your portfolio:

1. Never check the value of your portfolio during a bear market. Cited more pain as you look!?
2. Only check your portfolio values during a bull market. Stay motivated to invest?
3. Be careful with your brokerage account. A reminder your investments are designed for long-term growth. 

I probably break all these rules!

I tend to check our bank accounts every other day, including credit card transactions for any fraud but mostly for budget forecasting.

A Better Way to Budget

I know I check our brokerage accounts at least a couple of times per week – including assets designed for long-term investing. So, I do that regardless if there is a bear market or bull market. 

It’s also important I do so since those brokerage accounts contribute to monthly dividend income updates like the ones below – cashflow we now rely on for current early retirement spending. 

July 2026 Dividend Income Update

I don’t believe there is any right or wrong here. I know folks that barely look at their investments and others that check a few times per day. Both cohorts are successful. I think the key here is not how often you check your portfolio but rather what you do or in many cases, do not do with that information. 

“The big money is not in the buying and selling, but in the waiting.” – Charlie Munger

How often do you check your portfolio? Does that automatically trigger any buying or selling for you?

More Weekend Reading – Beyond how often do you check your portfolio?

I found perma-bear David Rosenberg’s article in The Globe and Mail interesting of late (subscription):

“Why I’m much more bullish on the TSX than U.S. stocks”.

He cites the dividend yield as one metric for value over the S&P 500. 

“Well, the TSX dividend yield, at 2.2 per cent, is not only double the comparable level for the S&P 500 but also matches what you can garner in the money market. Not the case in the U.S., where you can opt for a 1.1-per-cent dividend yield in the stock market or a 3.9-per-cent yield in three-month Treasury bills. Another no-brainer.”

Yes, OK, David, but I also get a chuckle from many experts since they pivot from from doom-and-gloom to optimism. Only a couple of years ago, you might recall bearish experts predicted a massive recession that never happened. 

That evidence is here since I wrote about it.

A good reminder on expert predictions in the media: everyone has to put food on the table. 🙂

We live in interesting times…

This week, I read Money Talks, by Nick Maggiulli of Of Dollars and Data – he suggests you save your money vs. flaunting it.

“If you spend enough money, you can convince people that you are whoever you want. But if I were you, I’d keep quiet and save the money instead.”

A good reminder to Retire to Something, by Pete Matthew of Meaningful Money.