Originally Posted by
Muse
Ha I probably spend the same amount of time on the portfolio as many people here do, on most days. Typical day spend ~30m drinking coffee and reading announcements at ~9.30am, after school run. Am semi retired so go about my day with whatever work projects I have on, otherwise work on the property, chores and a bit of exercise. Browse through some aussie announcements quickly at lunch. That's it for the day unless I go down the rabbit hole researching a company which I don't usually get to till late after family commitments, and not common. It helps to have an investor mindset with a number of my shares held long term, so I'm totally unbothered by day to day fluctuations in price, and I probably only execute a fraction of the buy/sell orders that most here will do. Fairly familiar w/ the portfolio companies as been in most for a while but I have a little folder on my computer for each one where I save bits of research and BOE analysis i've done on them over the years so I can quickly revisit.
For reasons very specific to me it's not efficient for me to own NZ/AU ETFs, so I invest directly. NZ market is tiny so not hard to stay across, aussie is relatively large with a lot of under researched small caps, and I enjoy looking at companies. I am in effect just trying to make my own diversified Australasian ETF. Offshore markets are staggering large and my hit rate on picking direct investments there was mixed so I just have two ETFs now.
Portfolio a bit smaller by # of companies vs last 2 years as I did a bit of tidy up, and still more to do. I don't pay equal care and attention to all the stocks. Sometimes that's served me well as it let me let a few runners run. But has bitten me in the bum a few times. Case in point early 2020 I invested into Afterpay after I saw first hand how it turbocharged sales for those who started offering it. I invested on that basis and then in early 2022 it was merged/acquired by Block. It was a big return so I sold the excess capital gain on market and left my original $ investment in shares, which were acquired by Block who issued me shares in themselves as consideration. I thought just leave it and not watch. The SP plummeted into one of the most vicious downtrends ever. I obviously see that on the graph but reminded myself it was just my initial capital and to just let it do its thing over the years, and I was in effect trying to emulate an Australasian ETF which has individual shares go up and down all the time. Finally it started to really bother me so I opened some financial statements for the first time and I sickened - horrified I hadn't looked at the books once over the last 18 months while all this was going on. Got pretty close to selling on a few occasions and it really tested my resolve to accept large capital losses on individual shares even if it didn't really move the dial on what my portfolio was doing. Fortunately the founder stepped back into the business and started cutting costs and improving profitability. That coupled with the recent tech run set the SP up nearly 90% to where I had considered selling. I will probably retire that investment and roll into an ETF or something more blue chip that offers less surprises in the new year. It was a good learning experience for me and the strengths and weaknesses of my investment style.
From a time commitment perspective I've done a lot of work on companies and not gone on to invest in them, which can feel like a waste (but still a worthwhile thing if that was the right call). And others where I dived into the detail a bit much and it tanked...harmoney for instance I wasted a lot of time back in what early 2022 for a loss (so bad time investment and bad financial investment). I reflect on that as part of my learning experience and how to balance time, effort and reward.
sharesight has been a godsend for tracking the dividends and the investments.