I have several bad investing habits. The worst, clearly, is that I sometimes buy stocks that go down. But a close second is my propensity to watch my portfolio a little too closely, occasionally wasting time staring at real-time changes in the fortunes of my 55 stocks.

In my defense, I only do so on three occasions: when I'm up a lot on the market, when I'm down considerably or when I'm close to even. I have two excuses. First, because I now manage other people's money, I have a fiduciary duty to pay attention. Second, this year I am trailing Standard & Poor's 500-stock index slightly for the second time in nine years, and I'm desperate to close the gap. On that count, time is running out.

Minute by minute

So one morning I do nothing but stare at the real-time progress of my portfolio for two and a half hours. I thought it would be a breeze getting paid to follow my obsession. It isn't.

Right after the opening bell, three facts emerge. Oils and small companies are surging, and insurers are tanking as a hurricane threatens Florida. I have major holdings in all three sectors. So, on balance, this is good. By 9:38, I am beating the market by 62 basis points (a basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point). What a glorious move! Ah, life is good. (Did I mention I am smart and good-looking?)

Just five minutes later, the market vaporizes my lead. In an instant, I go from pure exhilaration to 'Did you get the license number of that truck?' I wish I had never known about the huge lead.

One stock I am tracking carefully is my third-largest holding, Scientific Games (symbol SGMS), which runs state lotteries and instant-winner games. The stock has been in a funk but surged on huge volume yesterday before the release of news that it had won an extension of its Texas instant-ticket lottery contract. Right after the open, SGMS vaults to $17.75, extending yesterday's gain by 4.2%. But within 15 minutes, it plunges to $16.70. Ouch.

At 9:51, a hedge-fund buddy who first told me about SGMS calls. I almost say, "Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm watching my portfolio." He, too, is mesmerized by SGMS's yo-yo act. He says news of the Texas win was in the market yesterday -- I had finally figured that out -- and adds that SGMS has a 50-50 chance of winning the large Thailand lottery. This is news to me. Maybe that will help SGMS today.

Wrong. The stock does absolutely nothing. Its failure to budge mocks the close attention I am lavishing on it.

At 10:42, I learn that government figures show a drawdown of 4.2 million barrels of oil, and my energy stocks rip even higher. At 11:03, SGMS goes from up 12 cents to down 8 cents in a nanosecond. I hate moves like that -- they mess with your head. Two minutes later, however, the opposite happens with micro-cap Troy Group, another large holding of mine. It goes from $3.60 to $3.85 in a heartbeat -- on total volume of 2,250 shares -- and I'm suddenly ahead by 12 basis points (or bps, if you like jargon).

At 11:33, I learn that JLG Industries, the stock I wrote about in my September column, won a $21-million Army contract. Yea! Finally, at 11:53, with Kmart and Eastman Kodak surging, I leave with a lead of 23 bps.

No fun at all

What do I ultimately learn? That my vigil combined tedium with frustration in a very annoying way. I'd never watched the market so closely for so long, and I'll never do it again. I felt trapped in a cage, suffering in my own personal No Exit world, with quotes substituting for people. It didn't feel like investing because it wasn't. I did little research during my stare-down with the tape.

Some of my betters are more detached. Warren Buffett supposedly checks the prices of his holdings once a day, after the close. A friend who co-manages billions also has a disdain for quotesmanship. In fact, I leave my tape-watching to join him at the U.S. Open in Flushing Meadows. He doesn't have a clue what the market or his stocks are doing today -- and he doesn't care. "But don't you think about it at all?" I ask. He replies: "I think about my stocks all the time, just not about the quotes." I vow to reform.

When I return home, I learn that I beat the market by all of two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point. Where did the rest of my lead go? How could I have been so negligent? If only I had been paying attention.

Columnist Andrew Feinberg writes about the choices, challenges and frustrations facing individual investors.

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