Setting Up a Stock Watcher Schedule

It's good for your investment club to have a methodology for keeping watch on the stocks you've purchased.

When you purchase a stock, you use some judgments about the future to make your decision. It is good to revisit those judgments each quarter when your companies release their earnings reports. In an earnings report, a company discusses it's sales and earnings growth. They also discuss any items of importance that are happening with their business. You can look at what they report and decide if you should keep the judgments you originally made or adjust them. If you make changes that adjust the potential return for your stock, you should evaluate it's impact on your portfolio and decide whether to buy, sell or hold it.

Each stock should be assigned a watcher who will get into the details of the quarterly reports. When you purchase a stock, one of the stockwatchers first jobs should be to find out when the regular earnings reports come out. Your club will need to be aware of them so you can schedule time in your meetings each quarter in case any discussion and decision making needs take place.

Suggested Activity

Make sure each stock your investment club owns has been assigned a watcher. Each watcher should find out when their company normally releases its earnings reports. They can do this by going to finance.yahoo.com and selecting "SEC Filings" from the Company Section on the left side of the page. A quarterly SEC filing is called a 10-Q. There are three of these a year. The annual (or 4th quarter) filing is called a 10-K. There is one a year. Find the dates of the most recent 10-K and the three most recent 10-Q's.

Reports will not always be released on exactly the same dates but for planning purposes, it gives you a good place to start. Plan to have a brief review of the report at the club meeting which comes right after it is released.

If you'd like to put together a Google Calendar showing your stock watcher schedule, email us at support@bivio.com and we'll help you to make it accessible directly from your bivio pages.