Financial/Geek tip: If your company has provides a share ownership plan where they provide a matching contribution it is useful to know how your stock is doing both at a overall level and at an out-of-pocket level.
I track this by creating two portfolios in Google Finance but you should be able to recreate this in any investment tracking software. On the first portfolio track both employer contributions and personal contributions, dividends and subsequent share purchases. On the second I track only my personal cash contributions and dividends and omit the company contributions. When it comes time to track share purchases I only apply my personal purchases to available cash and add the company contributions with “no cost”.
By comparing the personal return on investment vs. the actual return on investment you will be able to better justify remaining in a share ownership plan especially if there is a penalty for early withdrawal.
Personally my current return on investment in my SOP is at about 45% vs. -5% actual return on investment. If that isn’t an incentive to buy and hold I don’t know one.