In an earlier post, I had mentioned several reasons why I would not publish monthly updates on portfolio performance anymore.
However, it is now time to revisit those reasons. The first reason I gave was a practical one. I was spending too much time on monitoring day to day performace, and that was taking a toll on me. Well, I have now used Access and VBA to create a database infrastructure, and so the difficulty in monitoring has been minimized greatly. I still have to spend half an hour or so everyday to enter everything, but I need it do monitor my trading activities anyway.
The second reason I gave was that I was spending too much time on minute by minute monitoring of my stock portfolio, leading to increased trading activity. Well, over time, I have acquired the discipline required not to obsess over minute by minute changes, even if I do monitor them. So I am less worried about it than earlier.
The third reason I gave was that as a long term investor, I did not see the need to compare myself with benchmarks on a monthly basis. I still believe this to be true. But I am now also a trader, and in trading, I am trying to trade for income. So that certainly involves monitoring myself in the long term and short term against benchmarks. Also, I realize that as an investor or as a trader, I do need to have “Alpha”, an outperformance against benchmarks.
Conclusion
Because my thinking has evolved, or because my situation has changed, I am now resuming the posting of monthly updates on performance.