Read, Write and Watch

This is what I do with most of my waking hours. This actually came up twice on Friday. I thought this might be a good look over my shoulder.

When I first turn on the computer in the morning I read the Briefing.com In Play on Yahoo then I check out what the futures are doing and read the MarketWatch pre-opening summary. Then I will look at the global markets page on MarketWatch to see if there is anything in the European markets I need to know. After that, in no particular order I will see what there is to read on Bloomberg.com, Marketwatch, The Street.com, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, WSJ.com and MSN.com. At some point in the middle of that the market opens.

Right around the open of the market I get an email about emerging markets that I then read. About a half hour after the market opens my wife gets up and we watch CNBC together, ahem, feed the dogs, make our mochas and she tells me anything I need to know for the day. At that point I head off to Phoenix, if I am going that day.

Assuming I am working from home I then check out any of the dozen blogs or so blogs that are in the regular rotation. I get big news on any companies I follow from In Play or CNBC. At 8am I watch European Closing Bell. If any of my European holdings have news I get that from the MarketWatch Europe page or the night before on Today's Business Europe. Closing Bell will devote a lot of time to European news makers, global investment strategy, currency and the US markets.

While I am able to keep up with the stocks in my universe I am unlikely to catch something in the Des Moines Register.

There are also a few weekly reads like Nicole Elliott and John Hussman.

If I need to do any errands, fire department business (I have been the treasurer of the board for two years but as of next week I will be vice-president and have a lot less work) or honey do's I take care of that between 10 am and noon, usually (subscribing to Sirius was a great investment).

When I get back I revisit the various sites to look for new content to read (actually most of it gets fed to MyYahoo but you get the idea).

When the market closes I go through one last look at prices (fyi I only look prices four or five times a day), I don't feel the need to watch every tick all day. If there is something unusual, good or bad, with any stocks I care about I will watch the trading more closely. At 1:30 or so I usually do yoga for about 45 minutes for exercise (you may chuckle but it is a rough workout).

My wife usually gets home right around the time Asian Squawk Box comes on. Again here there is a lot of insight about US Markets and currencies. At this time of day I read Bloomberg's Asian News page, the New Zealand Herald, Barron's online exclusive and continue to pay attention to the blogosphere.

I should mention that I also have news search on MyYahoo for ETFs, CEFs and emerging markets. I often stumble across good content from these. Chances are I am forgetting a site or two.

After about 4pm I have to ease up on the stock market TV for the sake of my marriage, but I have CNBC Asia on the other tuner (TiVo users know what I mean) so I can catch some of the interviews I have written about. I always watch the first half hour Asian Market Watch (this is the show that appear regularly on, although I was on Squawk once).

I keep the computer on during the evening to keep with the Asian markets. The last thing I do in a day is watch Today's Business Europe.

I do a lot of writing in between the reading and the watching. Most of what I write is reacting to something I have seen, read or was emailed about. The writing helps me process some of what I take in. I get new stocks to watch (not that often) from something I see or read. I'll write about the process of buying a new stock another time.

I work in any trading I need to do for clients as my first priority. That obviously comes first.

All of these things are behind the decision process of what changes to make and when. My goal with all of this to do what I can to get more big picture decisions right than wrong. As I write here, often, I take little bit from what I read and watch to continually hone my process.

This is my weekday routine. Another time I'll write a post about my weekend routine.