OR
Student
Lesson 9
Stocks & Contentment
When investing, you can be:
The dangers of investing while discontent include:
Chasing after easy money is well worn path that does not end well.
Getting easy money plants deep the seeds of gambling addiction in your heart.
Very difficult to sustain a generous lifestyle when pursuing get-rich-quick schemes.
What is a Stock?
Stocks are an incredible invention.
Before stocks, companies who needed money needed to go to a bank, or their rich friends, to get it.
After stocks, companies could raise money from millions of individuals through the issuing of “shares of stock.” Each share represents partial ownership in the future profits of the company.
So, essentially, owning a share of a company’s stock means you are a partial owner of the company.
If the company grows, your ownership share is worth more than before.
How to Invest in Stocks
A stock exchange, like a farmer’s market, is a place where buyers and sellers come together to do business.
An individual cannot just show up at a stock exchange and do business.
An individual with a buy or sell order needs to hire a broker to execute their order for them.
The broker usually takes a commission (usually $5-$20 per trade).
A few popular brokers:
- Robinhood
- E-trade
- TD Ameritrade
- Charles Schwab
Robinhood has become popular since they charge no commission. Most of these other brokers have followed suit and do not charge a commission for buying or selling stocks.
The Timeless Snare
For the following stocks, people got very rich, very quickly
Bitcoin (+11,900%)
Gamestop (+3,150%)
Tesla (+1,718%)
Do you feel incredible regret that you did not buy Tesla stock or Bitcoin?
Do not go down that path.
There have always been treasure maps with the possibility of great treasure for those that pursue it.
However, there is a dreadful curse attached to this type of pursuit:
Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” 1 Timothy 6:9, NIV
Unlike Pirates of the Caribbean, this curse does not suddenly infect you the moment you find the treasure.
No, this curse begins the moment your heart begins to yearn to become rich.
Gambling Addiction
Discontentment
Psychologically, gaining easy money is one of the worst things that can happen to you.
It lays the seeds for future gambling addiction and discontentment.
Main criteria of a gambler is to depend mostly on chance.
- If your investing time-frame is measured in days, weeks, or months, it is very likely that most of what you are doing is entirely based on chance.
An investor-owner thinks in terms of years, not days.
- They try to find productive assets to purchase that will most likely earn a sufficient rate of return.
- They understand that when you pay too much for something, you will likely have lots of risk with a very low expected return.
Feeling regret over not getting rich quick, and then reacting by putting money at high risk so that you can also get rich quick too is the opposite of contentment.
“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” Hebrews 13:5, NIV
Get Rich Quick Video
Rediscover what we have now
- We have all discovered the hidden Kingdom of God. It is like a treasure that we found in a field, and, in our joy, we sell everything we have to buy the field so that we may fully possess this treasure (Matthew 13). We possess the Kingdom of God right now!
- We have all been given the generosity of Christ. Because Jesus was rich, He became poor, so that we might become rich (2 Corinthians 8). We are rich in generosity right now!
Checklist for Stock Market
- Only put your money at risk in the stock market if you are both: content (not chasing after riches), and can say ‘yes’ to all four criteria below:
- No debt (or future debt that is on the horizon)
- Emergency fund of at least 3 months.
- When you need to replace your car, computer, and clothing, you are able to do it with cash.
- Do not need the stock market money for at least 7-10 years.
- Even if all criteria are clear for you, it is still likely better to invest in the following before you buy any risky stocks:
- Down payment for a home
- Tax-deferred retirement account that you should not access until at least age 60 (e.g., 401k or Roth IRA). More details will be discussed in Lesson 11.
Transition
