Checking Your Portfolio Daily

The more frequently you check your portfolio, the worse your returns. This isn't folk wisdom — it's Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economics. Benartzi and Thaler (1995) showed that investors who checked monthly made worse decisions than those who checked annually, because frequent checking exposes you to more visible losses (even in a rising market, daily returns are negative ~46% of the time). The S&P 500 is positive on ~54% of days, ~63% of months, ~75% of years, and ~95% of rolling 20-year periods. The less you look, the more positive it appears, and the less likely you are to panic sell. Set it and forget it is not lazy — it's optimal.