Smart Investing Series

Last month I had the fun of deciding how to invest the profit of the sale of my New Jersey house. And it was fun, and I think I’ve made good choices. But my track record is nothing to boast about. When I cashed in a chunk of my IRA for the down payment on that same house, I told my broker that I have a fool-proof investment strategy: buy high, sell low. I’ve proved it over and over again. I bought a condo in Minneapolis the month the market peaked; it sold 8 years later at a sheriff’s auction for less than half of what I paid for it in the first place. And the year before I bought my house, when about my retirement account had been mostly in a balanced equity fund, I decided to transfer half of it from bonds to stocks. I put 1/3 into tech stocks, 1/3 into an international fund, and 1/3 into medical technology. Thank goodness for the medical technology stocks. They’re the only ones that didn’t bottom out. And - I really should have expected it - the week after I cashed out what I needed for my down payment, the market started back up again. Forget what they say about Alan Greenspan’s influence. I know better.

When I say I have a fool-proof investment strategy, I don’t mean that it’s proof against folly; I mean that it’s proof of folly. I do NOT have the Midas touch.

Everybody knows that the way to get rich is to buy low and sell high, right? Get in at the bottom of the market and get out at the top. The trick is, of course, knowing what’s going to go up and when it’s going to come down again. You can go crazy trying to outguess it. I don’t know how many day traders have gone bankrupt or committed suicide, but most of us heard about that one down in Georgia who went nuts a few years ago and started shooting people. I’ve heard former internet investors talk about their trading as if it were an addiction, the obsession that keeps focusing on just one more trade, one more high...

Do you watch the market? How much attention do you pay to the financial pages?

If you do, I’ll wager just about anything you care to name that the first stocks you look at are the ones you have invested in. All of a sudden, as soon as it’s your money that’s at stake, your interest level shoots up like a hot air balloon.

All good managers know that the way to get people on board with a new project is to involve them in the decision-making process. As soon as they participate, they’ve invested something: their time, their interest, their attention, their egos. It’s called having ownership, or giving people ownership. It’s a fundamental psychological principal: you’re interested in what’s yours. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

He didn’t mean that you can tell what you care about by where you put your money, although that’s certainly true as well. Your money does follow your heart. But he was giving his disciples instructions on how to live, not just a diagnostic tool to measure their commitment. Because your heart follows your money.

Remember that Jesus has just finished telling them - and us - not to do their religion as a performance, for human recognition or approval. Now he is giving them practical instructions on how to re-order their priorities, shifting focus from the world to God. In effect, he was telling them that once you start spending time and money on eternal things, it’s amazing how much more important they become.

I don’t have to tell you how obsessed our society is with money, with financial security and success. In their book, The Day America Told the Truth, authors James Patterson and Peter Kim reveal some shocking statistics on how far people in this country are willing to go for money:

(25%) Would abandon their entire family

(23%) Would become prostitutes for a week or more

(16%) Would give up their American citizenship

(16%) Would leave their spouses

(10%) Would withhold testimony and let a murderer go free

(7%) Would kill a stranger

(3%) Would put their children up for adoption.

There is a reason why "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" is still one of the highest rated prime time shows. There is a reason why dozens of intelligent, attractive women paraded and degraded themselves to “Marry a Multimillionaire” on national TV. There is a reason why Americans’ consumer debt in 2021 totaled $16.5 trillion, with the average debt of $96,371.There is a reason we work ourselves into an early grave, ignoring the people and things that matter most in life.