Why Checking Your Portfolio Feels So Good (and Can Hurt Your Returns)
How 'selective attention" leads to poor returns
We all know the feeling.
Your stock is up big, and you can’t resist opening your investing app to check the stock price. You already knew your investments were up, but you log on to bask in the glow of those beautiful green numbers and take a kind of (extremely premature) victory lap.
But when your portfolio is down, suddenly that app icon seems easier to ignore.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone – and a new study shows this habit could be hurting your investment results1
Although this kind of behavior seems harmless – after all, who wants to dwell on bad news? – but our tendency to pay attention only when things look good is a common investing mistake.
Behavioral scientists call it selective attention, and it can lead to overconfidence, sloppy decision‑making, and yes, poorer returns.
Why we love looking at winners (and avoiding losers)
A recent article in The Review of Economic Studies examined millions of brokerage account logins and ran experiments to see when investors choose to peek at their portfolios. The findings confirmed something many of us intuitively suspect: we derive a kind of pleasure from checking on investments that have gone up, and we shy away from looking at those that have gone down. The authors dub this “attention utility” – the immediate gratification of paying attention to positive information.
By logging in only when we’re winning, we risk making decisions based on a skewed view of our portfolio. Even worse, the rush of seeing gains can tempt us into risky behavior and over trading.
Key findings
Investors check winners, ignore losers. In the field data, investors were far more likely to log into their accounts to view stocks that had risen, while largely averting their eyes from those that were down 1.
Selective attention leads to more trading. That celebratory login often triggered extra trades – the classic “sell my winner because it feels good” move. Overtrading is a well‑known wealth killer.
We’ll even forgo money to stare at a winner. In a lab experiment, participants preferred a smaller cash payment to review a winning investment over a larger payment to review a loser – proof the pleasure of good news can outweigh rational incentives. You literally can’t pay people, to sit with the uncomfortable feeling of watching their portfolio drop.
It’s entertainment, not information. The winning positions people ogled contained no new data; investors already knew the price. The benefit was purely emotional.
Put simply, we focus on the highs, hide from the lows, and trade too much in the process.
I’ve covered the harmful effects of ‘over trading’ in many posts before:
What it means for your wallet
The good news is that this selective attention is only ‘half’ a problem.
Lots of research has shown the checking in on your portfolio too much—whether its up or down—leads to poor investment decisions.
It’s fine that you don’t check your portfolio on days the market is down—but you should also avoid the temptation to check in when its up.
The simplest fix, is don’t check your portfolio unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you need to rebalance your portfolio or invest newly deposited money, these are legit reasons to check in on your portfolio.
Checking in just to ‘feel’ good about your money leads to problems.
Yeah it feels nice when our portfolio is up, and you feel a little bit richer. Just remeber, investing is a long term game and if you don’t need the money for years down the line, it really does not matter whether your investments are up or down today.
What matters is the price when you sell. And if your not selling for years from now, hop off the dopamine train and stop obsessing over daily returns.
This article is for informational purposes only. It should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a qualified professional before making major financial decisions.
Ernesto Quispe‑Torreblanca, John Gathergood, George Loewenstein & Neil Stewart (2025). “Attention Utility: Evidence from Individual Investors,” Review of Economic Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdaf028