Investing isn't always about buying and selling.
It's also about watching. You know, identifying those interesting stock picks that might look good in your portfolio one day, so you watch them and see how they perform.
This is easy to do on the Globe Investor site. And, you can even create multiple Watchlists so that you can put these coveted investments into manageable groups.
Let's create our first Watchlist by clicking on the list finder. People love dividend stocks these days, so we'll start with a Watchlist that tracks a few of the more popular names.
First, we'll give our list a name -- "Dividends" seems appropriate in this case. Then click "done".
Next, add some stock ticker symbols and hit "enter" after each one. So here we go: BCE, Bank of Nova Scotia and Coca-Cola. When you're done, click on "add to Watchlist".
Presto: The stocks are assembled in a list, along with some handy information, including the day's move, the 52-week trading range and the latest news on each company.
And look at this: If you click on the View Finder, and change it from Overview to Dividends, you can get nifty dividend information, such as the payout ratio.
But as an well-rounded investor, you're probably interested in more than just dividends. So let's go back to the List Finder and create another Watchlist.
Simply click on "create a new Watchlist" again. We'll call this one technology and repeat the steps used for our dividends Watchlist.
For stocks, let's add Research In Motion, Apple and Microsoft, hitting "enter" after each ticker symbol. Then click on "add to Watchlist" again.
Keep in mind that you can also track mutual funds, commodities and indexes using the same approach.
Now, when we click on the tab on the far left, we get a list of our two Watchlists and can easily modify them by adding new stocks or deleting old ones. In goes Enbridge into our dividends list and out goes Scotiabank.
That's all you need to get your Watchlist started on Globeinvestor.com. With a little practice, pretty soon you'll be a stock-watch pro.
For more help, e-mail globeinvestor@globeandmail.com.
David Berman