Do Investors Have To Keep Up With The News?

As an investor do you have to keep up with the news?  The answer really lies in how often you look at your accounts.  We’ll give you a couple of examples and you can decide how up to date you need to stay in order to keep up.

You are very aware that if you want to know what’s happening in the world you can visit any news website or watch any news channel to be apprised of the daily top stories.  But often there is such an overload of news and daily stories that you likely want to just focus on your plans for the day. So do you need to keep up with the news in order to invest?

Weekly Or Monthly Account Reviews

If you log in weekly or monthly to review your account balances and investment performance then you should be aware of what happened that week or month.  You won’t be surprised if your portfolio value has increased or decreased if you know what was happening during that time frame. If there were several news stories that moved the whole market lower, then your portfolio likely followed suit.  If you understand this, then you won’t be disappointed because you know the whole market moved lower. However, if there were good stories that were positive and the overall market was moving higher but your portfolio didn’t, then you could start your research.

Six To 12 Month Account Reviews

Many people investing in retirement accounts may not log into their accounts for six months or a year.  This is a much longer time frame than the example given above. For investors who add funds over time and trust the advisor managing them they may log in less frequently because they believe over time the market moves higher.  They don’t see all the weekly ups or downs that volatility can bring so they just need to keep a general knowledge of what’s going on in the economy and world.

You can see between these examples that the frequency with which you follow your investments will impact how up to date you should be on the news.  An advisor who highlights stories you need to know about and explains why they matter may be just enough to keep you focused on your day. Meanwhile you know your advisor is paying attention to the stories of the day in order to make changes as necessary.

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