Do you monitor your pension position daily?

Avgeek

I'm looking more frequently now that my planned early retirement is due to happen around end of this year/first quarter of next, so I now check my Aviva app daily and the rest monthly. I watched the slump last spring daily and gasped a few times, but now I'm over that and am totally relaxed looking at the daily/monthly ups and downs.  I'm glad I looked more closely last year, it really taught me to chill about my whole retirement plan. Yes, there were a few days of "stress" and everything is now back to a lot higher values than they were before, but it would take a lot more than last year's drop in values to worry me now.

FloraandFauna

I do. For the present.

I'm still new'ish to investing within a SIPP, and I find it fascinating to see the daily changes and how they may or may not reflect what's happening in the market. I get to go "oooh, market slightly up, but value slightly down, but that's the currency change effect" (thanks to guys on here for the info!), and just generally watch how this new, interesting, thing of mine behaves.

I'm not worried about dips (even when in March last year I briefly had less than I put in) since the one main lesson I've picked up from this forum is that value will go up and down and up and down and up and down and up and down...

I imagine the fascination will wear off over time, and I'll just check monthly, or annually when I'm reassessing my total retirement picture.

westv

dunstonh said:

Do you monitor your pension position daily?

No.  That would be a silly thing to do and would only lead to anxiety and the potential of poor decision making.

Why assume the one will always lead to the the other?

dunstonh

westv said:

dunstonh said:

Do you monitor your pension position daily?

No.  That would be a silly thing to do and would only lead to anxiety and the potential of poor decision making.

Why assume the one will always lead to the the other?

People who check their values daily are generally anxious. Why else would they check them otherwise?
Anxious people tend to make decisions that may not be in their best interests unless they get people telling them otherwise.

There are always exceptions to generalisations.  But why check the value daily when you are looking at multi-decade periods of investing.  Some will be investing for 70 or more years.

westv

dunstonh said:

westv said:

dunstonh said:

Do you monitor your pension position daily?

No.  That would be a silly thing to do and would only lead to anxiety and the potential of poor decision making.

Why assume the one will always lead to the the other?

People who check their values daily are generally anxious. Why else would they check them otherwise?
 

Because they are just nosey? It can take just seconds to check.

sevenhills

I check my shares every day and some shares that I am interested in.

I am looking to transfer some funds when I have a reasonable profit, but really checking the prices weekly would be all thats needed.

I dont get anxious at all if my shares have gone down, I have some shares that are 40% down, but others that I have sold after a reasonable profit.

Intoodeep

Update my spreadsheet daily where possible.

Chickereeeee

dunstonh said:

Do you monitor your pension position daily?

No.  That would be a silly thing to do and would only lead to anxiety and the potential of poor decision making.   If you are in a multi-asset fund, then once a year is fine.  If you have a portfolio of single sector funds then a bit more frequently.

In my opinion,  one of the main benefits of using an IFA, for a newby, is the delay factor they introduce. By the time you have seen a fall, decided to do something about it, and got ahold of your advisor, you could well have calmed down a bit: even without his/her advice. 
I monitor quite often, say weekly, but have learnt to do nothing that doesnt conform to your plan that you had in place months (years?) ago.

Linton

I update my fund prices and rerun the plan at least once a day.  The tools are set up so that this can be done with a single mouse click so if there is nothing better to do I click the mouse.

Despite Dunstonh's worries I dont have panic attacks nor uncontrollable urges to tweak the %s although as a retiree I dont have the comfort of knowing that everyting will sort itself out in 20 years.

Marcon

westv said:

dunstonh said:

westv said:

dunstonh said:

Do you monitor your pension position daily?

No.  That would be a silly thing to do and would only lead to anxiety and the potential of poor decision making.

Why assume the one will always lead to the the other?

People who check their values daily are generally anxious. Why else would they check them otherwise?
 

Because they are just nosey? It can take just seconds to check.

Waste of time checking daily. Shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the long term nature of pension investments. Six monthly or annual is fine for those who do understand!