The Brass Teapot
Good morning!
At least a few times a week, I walk about 5 miles on the treadmill in the morning before work.
At my typical pace, it takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes or so.
To keep myself occupied, I'll often prop the iPad up and watch a movie.
A couple of weeks ago, I watched The Brass Teapot.
This 2012 movie is about a young, married couple that stumble upon an antique teapot.
And every time they hurt themselves, the teapot literally produces cash out of thin air.
There's a little more to the movie, and if you're interested in checking it out, it's currently streaming for free on Amazon Prime Video.
The official tagline of the movie is "No Pain. No Gain."
And while it's no Oscar-worthy film, it's one that stayed with me for a few days after watching it...
How many of us "hurt ourselves" in the pursuit of money?
I'm not talking about physical pain, but whether it's time away from family and friends or sticking with a job or career that feels like it's sucking the life out of you, some of us are clearly making some sacrifices.
And some of these sacrifices are painful.
Even if they're not painful today, they'll likely be painful in the future when reflecting on missed opportunities to spend more time with the people that mean the most to us.
Or missed opportunities to live our lives more deliberately and purposefully.
Instead of living the lives we feel we should.
Or we feel is expected of us.
And I'm not speaking from a position of authority here.
I battle with these same decisions and trade-offs. Every day.
So whether or not you invest the hour and 41 minutes to watch The Brass Teapot, I encourage you to take a close look at not just how you spend your money but how you're spending your time.
You can almost always make more money.
The same can't be said of your time.
Another underlying theme in the movie, and one I've written about before, is how much is enough?
I'll leave it at that, but if you check out the movie I'd be curious to know what you think and if it stuck with you like it did for me.
Average is OK
An almost inconceivable amount of money is spent - and often lost - in an attempt to "beat the market."
This money-losing venture is pursued through active investment management which involves trying to time the market and/or pick winning investments.
I gave up on active management about 20 years ago while I was still at Merrill Lynch.
I've written about this topic many times in the past. Here are a couple of examples:
I bring this up again today based on the following chart: (click image to view larger version)
The chart above shows intra-year declines vs actual calendar year returns of the S&P 500 index from 1980 through May 31, 2021.
The most recent example of the disparity between the intra-year low and actual return was just last year as a result of the pandemic.
The S&P 500 was down 34% in March, but wound up posting a positive 16% gain for the calendar year 2020.
There's a hindsight is 20/20 joke in there somewhere, I think.
Understandably, some of you were freaked out in March 2020 when the market was dropping like a rock.
Thankfully, you fought against your desire to run for the exit sign and go to cash.
And as a result, not only did you avoid turning an unrealized loss into a realized loss, you would have also been faced with the tricky decision of when to reinvest your cash back into your portfolio.
Personally, I think it's hard enough to stick with a diversified, balanced portfolio without adding market timing and investment selection to the mix.
And I think the chart above does a nice job of reinforcing this idea.
When it comes to investing, I believe average is OK.
I hope you can see that too.
Focus Pocus
This recent Washington Post article argues that our ability to focus may be limited to only 4 to 5 hours a day.
Which begs the question...
What are spending your limited amount of focus on?
Or who?
Remember, time - whether focused or not - can't be spent once it's gone.
Make sure you're focused on the people, activities, and things that are TRULY important to you.
Easier said than done, I know. But worth the effort in my opinion...
Thank you, as always, for reading.
Until next Wednesday,
Russ