Creative way to track companies in your portfolio / watchlist

This is not my pf but BRK stock 😆

Confession

This article is about tracking a company you own instead of tracking the stock price, but before we get into it, I want to be honest with you.

I check my portfolio movement at least 3 times a day. I am not one of those people who claim they check their portfolios just once a week. I want to be, I am trying to be, but currently I’m not.

However, this is not bad thing for two reasons:

1. I don’t take action when something bad happens. I have always been someone who is slow to react during an obstacle, I like to let things play out, let my emotions fade so I can see things clearly. (if you are not good at this learn about Stoicism)
2. I might spend 10–15 minutes a day checking my stock movement, but I spend at least one hour on most days reading about a company or listening to an earnings call or reading books about investing and businesses.

Mohnish Pabrai has a very creative solution to this. He lives on the West Coast where according to PST time, markets will start at 6.30 am. He sleeps late, wakes up after 11 am, and avoids checking anything until the market is closed for the day.

You can do something else, whatever helps you avoid the noise and look at the big picture. And that’s exactly what this article is going to be about.

Tweet timelines

If you know me, you know that I am not on any social media platforms. But I recently thought of an idea to keep track of all the news around the companies I own. Which is why I now have a Twitter account.

A lot of things happen around a company during the course of a year. A company will release good earnings reports, lose market share to competition, slow down growth (which is a not always a bad thing), someone from leadership leaves and so on.

Keeping track of these events is hard enough, let alone viewing them objectively and reviewing them all at the end of a year.

Peter Lynch, in his amazing book One Up on Wall Street says, company news is like playing poker. With every new card, you decide if it helps you or it’s bad for you. Too many bad cards? You fold. One more card for full house? Great chances of winning.

So my idea is, for every company that you own, create a private Tweet storm

And insert the best elements of your research

Now, with every news that comes out, you will do one of three things.

• You will decide if the news is good for the company
• or the news is not worth it and you will just sleep onit
• or it might be a concern

Here’s an example of some good news.

Tip: I recommend using this app called Quartr to listen to earnings calls.

Here’s an example of a misinterpreted piece of info you sleep on

And finally something that might be concerning

If the news is too good or too bad you can give more than one tick / down arrow.

A Tweet timeline is a collection of these events.

With this timeline, note your thoughts about every piece of news (which will give you some perspective), give it a good or bad rating, and finally see the total rating instead of just the current one.

The reason to choose Twitter was, with the compact format, you will see 3–4 pieces of news at a time. And one scroll can give you a recap of how the complete story has played out. It will bring you out of just current events and panic.

Finally

Our worries about bad news always >>> Our happiness about good news. That’s how we hunter gatherers have evolved.

So let things run their course before you react, sit on your hands. Know the fact that companies in general move +- 50% every year. Know the fact that Amazon has fallen more than 50, 60, 70% many times. Knowing all of these, reminding yourself of these and knowing the company really well, make it slightly easier to sit tight when the stock price takes a nose dive.

People say if you like a stock at $400, you should like it at $250 as well. As someone who has recently started his investing journey, I know it’s hard. zoom out, and you’ll know it’s worth it.

That would be it for this article, happy investing :)

Disclaimer:

This article should not be used as investment advice. The tips / companies mentioned in this blog post are for educational purposes only.