"I don't know. What's wrong with this picture? And I am not picking on Mike Irwin, whom I like. I am sure there are scads of people just like that. I guess everyone makes choices as to what is important."
There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with this picture, Rabbi.
Properly researching the multiple thousands of possible stock purchase options that would go into a well-rounded portfolio vs the amount of time it takes to plug in a disk into a gaming system and play a few games of kill the CGI bad guy?
I suppose next you're gong to be wondering why Chris is spending time with his wife and daughter instead of burying himself 16x7x365 int stock research?
I'm certain that there are people who consider immersing themselves is stock research more invigorating than a dip in a ocean in midwinter; that it's their life, their existence, the reason they get out of bed in the morning, that they'd rather read a PE statement than do anything else...
I'm not one of them. Stock research isn't enjoyment, it's work. Playing a computer game isn't work, it's enjoyment.
The truly interesting thing is that since January 1, my mutual funds have out performed my individual stock holdings by a factor of SEVEN.
For every dollar that I've earned on my individual stock portfolio account, I've earned nearly seven dollars in my mutual funds. And given that my mutual fund balances are up nearly $40K this year, I have to say that I'm pretty happy with my strategy of letting the fund managers do the lion's share of the work.
Oh, and let me throw one of your quotes back at you, Rabbi...
"I am not sure why that matters. In fact it is several hours a day. But a person could be a much better investor spending even 5 hours a week learning and researching."
How do you know what I, or any one else, has done this week regarding stock research?
Or are you just assuming that the time I've spent playing XBox this week is roughly 99% of my free time?
Hint for you... It's not.
