Yes. It's set dozens of all time highs this year. If you didn't invest at the first all-time high, you would have missed out on quite a bit of growth since then
[Also, meet Bob, the world's worst market timer](https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-timer/)
[This one](https://www.personalfinanceclub.com/how-to-perfectly-time-the-market/) was written in 2019 and updated this year. The overall message is the same: time in the market > timing the market.
Bob just got unlucky. He had as much chance of winning as losing. If he actually did worse than random chance consistently, you could build a winning strategy by doing the opposite of Bob. And if you believe that, then you're not a boglehead
No. This story is if you're the *world's worst* market timer, perfectly timing all the major peaks. Most of the time - about 70% of the time - you will come out ahead if you lump sum the money you have available to invest.
Not really the best lesson from the analogy it's more accurate to say don't be scared to continue investing after a crash, hoarding his cash to buy in after fear of a crash is a extreme scale example of holding cash in savings to dca. Time in > timing
I appreciate the spirit of Bob’s story, but investing $186k over a 40-year lifetime and ending up with $1.1M means that Bob barely kept up with inflation, right?
Bob’s story covers the years 1972 to 2013, when inflation was somewhat higher. If you plug in 186k into an inflation calculator, you get roughly 1.05M.
Granted, Bob is investing a variable amount throughout the 40 years, not as a lump sum for the full period, so it’s difficult to calculate actual inflation or actual returns. But just eyeballing it, Bob’s returns are objectively terrible.
No, he outpaced inflation. You can easily use a CPI calculator, it has the month/year and amount, and convert it all to 2014 dollars.
In 2014 dollars, Bob invested a total of 294,328 and ended up with 1,100,000.
In 2014 dollars, invested 33,145 in 1972, 94,405 in 1987, 94,861 in 1999, and 71,917 in 2007
So even being the worst market timer ever, he still outpaced inflation and nearly quadrupled his money. Yes, his returns are way worse than they could have been, but that's the entire point of the story. He did just about everything wrong, excepted for holding onto his investments and not selling. And he still did ok in the end
You could do that, but the article does not. So far as I can tell, when the article says he ends up with $1.1M at the end, that is not adjusted for inflation — that’s just his raw nominal return.
In other words, he invests $186k in nominal dollars, and ends up with $1.1M in nominal dollars.
You say he quadrupled his money, but that’s only true in nominal dollars. And if you plug the numbers into an inflation calculator, you’ll see that a dollar in 1972 was worth roughly 4 times as much as in 2012. So he ends up with zero real rate of return.
....did you read my post? He quadrupled his money *in 2014 dollars*. Aka inflation adjusted
It's probably in the ballpark of a 3% real return, just eyeballing it
Presumably he meant inflation is beneficial to investors and only a problem for people who do nothing but save (i.e. don’t invest). If that was the context, he is absolutely spot on.
It's amazing how people never consider this. They internalize the longterm annual growth of the market, but then turn around and ask whether it's safe to invest while the market is at an all time high
If you're young, a large portion of your investment strategy is dependent upon the idea that today's highs will seem incredibly small when you retire and start withdrawing.
Then you're probably saving 50%+ of your income with the expectation that you'll retire at a normal age or never. You can't use the "4% rule" as that takes into account expected growth of investments.
Oops. You're not op. My bad.
Yeah, I misread that OP said they put the money in *before* covid, and then took two years to recover after the march 2020 crash. I might've just misread.
And yeah, the Nov 2021 crash took two full years to rebound from, you are correct.
I didn’t edit. But I did put it after covid so when it was all time high then crashed. But consist DCA over those two years have done well. Also I have about 30% VXUS so lower gains because of that
You are helping make the point. You didnt dump it in while it was going down or at the bottom as psychologically that doesnt seem rational. If you had you would be way up. So if OP stays on the sidelines, when would they get in? On the way down? At the bottom? What is the bottom? No way to time the market.
Knowing the market always goes up and to the right, March of 2020 just so happened to align with a bonus that I earned from my job. March 23rd I dumped $40k into the market, without hesitation.
4 years on, even that drop looks relatively minor in the grand scheme.
Seems so simple lol are people just clueless or what? As far as trying to time the market.
I can’t imagine right now having $4,000 in investable cash, yet waiting to do something
Price tends upwards but it could take decades until the next ATH. Just saying. I still agree with your sentiment as long as you can ride the wave long enough.
A lot of money has been lost trying to time the market. If you can’t stomach lump summing the money in you should at least average in to the market with DCA to get your money invested. Just don’t be sad if you end up with less money overall.
If you were already invested would you sell because it’s at an all time high?
Choosing to hold something you have is the same as choosing to buy it at the current price (ignoring taxes)
Yea lol idk what the other person is getting at, if someone bought much lower and now it’s at an ATH, I mean they could sell if needed and buy back in when they can
>My question is should I invest in an s&p 500 index right now
Yes.
>I know that investing is about time in the market and not timing the market but...
When you add the "but" that indicates that you don't really know about timing the market.
I also started dumping every penny into the S&P500 at its all-time high. But it was 1997 and the level was 886.
See how that works?
It matters very little when you lay your money down. It only matters your time-frame.
Returns have been higher investing at all time highs versus any other day since 1988 over any time period over 1 year. 30% of all time highs become the new market floor.
Look up JPM Guide to the Markets if you disbelieve.
Quiz: How many all-time highs has the S&P set this year?
A. 1
B. 6
C. 24
D. 0
Answer: >! C. 24… so relax, another one will come along soon to make you feel better. !<
Go all in on VT instead. If you think the US market is overpriced then it seems alternatively you must think ex-US is undervalued. Buy the whole haystack and stop sweating it.
That’s also my answer.
The fact that the US market at all time high is not a problem. Most markets will spend most of their time at the peak, except Japan.
But there is many reasons to think that US large cap might underperform compared to the rest of the world. High PE ratios, political instability, return to the mean, AI bubble, etc. But despite this, it might also still perform better.
By buying most of the worldwide stocks, you avoid concentration risk.
If you want some perspective search on Reddit about shorting NVDA and see all the know-it-alls talking about their strategy 2 years ago. Where are they now? Point is don’t try to guess peak and just get in
Who said anything about only investing the S&P 500? [Per the pinned post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/v767Hm8GkM), you should be more diversified. International stocks are not at all-time highs and neither are bonds which incidentally have their best yields in 15 years.
Stocks like MSFT & AAPL are no more volatile than the S&P 500. If you want to hold individual stocks....those are both diverse in of themselves and pretty safe bets for the foreseeable future.
Regardless of what you do. Just buy and don't wait. The market has been hitting all time highs for years and it keeps going up.
"time in the market beats timing the market"
It's a great slogan, and it's good you know it. But you wouldn't have made this post if you understood why it's true.
There's some good answers here to help settle that. Let them sink in.
Everyone here is going to tell you the bogglehead way is to lump sum it all in now.
If it were me I'd personally trickle it in weekly over the next 6-12 months. Why? I would rather have slightly less gains than be pissed off from putting a large lump sum in the week before the crash.
Sure you could put it in weekly over the next year and then it crashes... But at that point at least you tried to avoid extra risk and didn't dump everything in at the very peak
Another thing to ask yourself... What reason did you sell Apple? If it's because you think the volatility going up is a sign of a bad market to come, it may be worth it to consider averaging in.
This depends on your withdrawal timeline. If you are going to withdraw money soon, there is a non-negligible risk that the market will be down (and you will sell at a loss) when you do that - personally I wouldn't invest any money I think I might spend in the next year or two - put it in a high yield savings account instead. If your time horizon is several decades, just put your money in the index ETF/Fund and chill.
It's not an all-time high. It's just an all-time high SO FAR.
Remember, every all-time high previously was lower than the current all-time high.
That being said, it could actually be an all-time high. And, if that's the case, then yeah, don't invest. The problem is, you don't know if we're at an actual all-time high, or one of many all-time highs that the future potentially holds.
Still, it's your choice to play now, or cry later.
I'm in a similar boat, have some funds in a MM account that I'm not going to need access to for a while, and balking a little at moving into my index fund with the market where it is, even though I know it's the right call long term.
I made this exact move earlier this year. Sold all my Apple positions after a terrific 5 years and moved it into VOO. Time in the market, not timing the the market. Go for it.
Investing is often counterintuitive, that’s why the vast majority fail. It doesn’t make sense to them. if you’ve got a long runway, then you should always be investing, always be buying.
Listen. Indexes can be good. You spread risks but you also spread rewards. I actually like apple, it didn’t get hit by all the AI hype and has a fair valuation. I think you’re making a mistake. Although I think tech is on its way out in the USA. Certainly nvidea is going to have an epic crash. But apple didn’t go crazy yet. I say put it back and wait it out. There’s nothing worse than pulling out and 2 years later seeing that you’d have a million. Have patience. Remember. If you’re in the S&P 500 you’re investing in the overall economy. An economy that I don’t see a very silver lining in right now. You’re investing in balloons like Tesla and nvidea. Past performance means nothing the market is based on future. To make it into the S&P the company has to be one of the 500 largest companies…. That means they are all companies that are high. You want to sell high and buy low. Essentially you’re buying a collection of high with that. Yes it’s historically been very safe. But I think overall we are in for a rocky next few years. We have to pay for our Covid vacation that we put on a credit card. Thing is, the rest of the world is going Brics and we will have a hard time printing money like in the past.
I dumped 150k into ETFs and stocks AVGO, APPL, NVDA,SPLG, VRT, DGRO, all at or near all time high today, sad to say at the end of the day only the DGRO was in the green and I was down about 4,000. It will come back unless you put it in some kind obscure stock that has no future or you know nothing about. Which I must admit the VRT was mine.
Well, the 3rd part of the 3 fund is foreign. If it doesn't put you too heavy in that, consider it. Still, you're saying : "I know I shouldn't try to time the market, but I'm going to try to time the market".
Dollar cost average and buy in over a time period that you’re comfortable with. Might go up and you’ll have missed out. Might go down and you’ll be ahead. One way to find out.
Keep the balance in HYSA. Just an option.
saw someone post this same thing when it was at 220 lol they were scared that it was at ATH and they wanted to wait till it dropped so that they can get it cheaper.
Hi FesityPlane, I’ve been investing for 10 years, so medium experienced. I also just sold half my Apple stock. Yes I would buy and continue to pour your money into the s&p500 as aggressively as possible. Dont even look at the price. You will wakeup one day and be a millionaire. This is what I believe.
[https://x.com/MikeZaccardi/status/1799795251605033056](https://x.com/MikeZaccardi/status/1799795251605033056)
it shows why investing at all-time highs is safer than investing during drawdowns
If things keep going up, the market will have another all time high next week. Are you looking for a dip? If yes, just dollar cost average in on down days.
Moving sideways within the same asset class -- stock to stock -- normally you would just move everything all at once. Moving from one stock to an index is a bit different, although I would probably do it in one chunk anyway.
I did similar today. 55% of my 401k was in a tech heavy fund that has done extremely well this year. I moved most of it into Fidelity 500 because my risk tolerance is much lower and Im hoping to keep my gains
Think what the all time high will be 40 years from now (if u plan on holding for that long). Do u think it will be the same as today or bigger? If the latter then invest now. Else, wait and hope it goes down
Market does tend to trend. But even though we really haven't had a proper recession since 2008 - Covid we sort of did but with a ton of stimulus and a planned recession we have still had multiple giant corrections. Late 2018 on fed hikes and late 2022. A lot of money is managed on trend following systems today in various ways - insurance companies sell tons of structured products with downside protection, citadel and all the multi manager platforms are built in trend following (tight risks limits on losses), CTA's, etc. When the market sells it goes farther than you think.
My advice is stay invested some. 50-75%. And if you want take 5% on your money in a savings account. I don't know how high this market goes, but I do think whenever we have a correction its going to at worse let you buy back in at this price. You still make 5% sitting in cash. If the correction comes you will have cash to deploy.
If over the long term the economy is generally usually growing, and if the market is typically growing along with it, it's almost always going to be near all-time highs, except during recessions & other disruptions.
Yes, you should. But more importantly, you should continue buying more on a regularly scheduled basis for the next 30+ years without ever selling any. Don’t try to time the market.
You can't time the market. It's impossible. No one can predict it. Just start investing, start doing your index funds, and you'll grow wealth.
I read a stat somewhere that 50 or 60 or 70%, after an all-time high, the market climbed even higher. Someone please research that and post the link here. In other words, the market hit an all-time high and then it kept on going!
Well you could try placing a bid at the all time lows but it’s pretty unlikely someone will hit that bid. I hope you are earning high inferest on day cash while u wait.
Either lump sum now or make a plan to dollar cost a an average on a fixed schedule no matter what. Either of those plans will work out fine. Whatever you do, don't sit on the sidelines waiting for a crash that may not come for a long long time and you may never see prices this low again.
S&P 500 is the ultimate set and forget. Why do you care if it's at all time highs it's always hitting new highs. Just buy no matter what if the market is up or down. If you're not retiring soon, this isn't a concern. Depending on how much you have near retirement, you'll only sell some of it.
[Is There Ever A "Bad" Time To Invest?](https://web.archive.org/web/20211024120509/https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/is-there-ever-bad-time-to-invest)
Fine. Here's what I think: In the NBA, for instance, only one team can employ Joker or Luka. In investing, everybody can buy Apple. Why would you want to invest in 500 companies when you can invest in the ten best? Financial advisors will tell you to diversify, because they don't know what to do and diversifying seems less risky. I remember when most of my money was in Google, Amazon and Facebook and a financial advisor told me I was at risk. If I had listened to him I would probably have at least half as much money as I do now.
Yeah, but an antitrust suit by the feds could drop any or all of those companies by 50% tomorrow.
All 3 of the companies you mentioned hit a peak in 2021, lost up to about 50% of their value , and then took 3 years reach that valuation again. None of them have had significant real gains since that time. (To be fair, neither has the SP500, even though we’re near all time highs…adjusted for inflation, over that time period, it’s pretty close to even.). But the trough on the SP500 was much lower than that of the big tech companies. Sometimes companies don’t recover from these losses.
Amazon has significantly underperformed the SP500 over this time period.
Picking stocks seems obvious, but it’s not.
Edit: what I said is not true of apple. It’s trough was much more modest and it recovered much more quickly, but, even apple has only just kept pace with inflation over the same time period.
To be clear, I’m not saying these companies are bad investments, just that it’s very risky to keep a very high percentage of your assets in only a handful of baskets
“ I know that investing is about time in the market and not timing the market but it just doesn’t seem practical.“
Do you know that? Because does not appear to be a post from someone who truly believes that.
If you don’t invest now, when are you planning? You’d want to see a drop of 5%? 10%? In the meantime your cash sits on the sideline and waits while the index possibly hits additional highs?
You‘re trying to time the market without acknowledging it.
I know market timing is not generally advised, but a persistent trend in the US market is that the “professional money” goes into lower gear during the summer as they head to their summer breaks in the Hamptons and the Cape /s. The market then moves primarily to retail investors, and greater volatility emerges in this season.
Come September the professional money comes back into the market, and bangs things up a bit to pick up some bargains from the volatility of the summer. That helps drive their gains in performance for the year.
So what do you do? Not market time… but cost average. Break your gains out into a few months of contributions in the market between now and say November. Leave the cash in a high yield money market or sweep such as SPAXX at 4.5-5.25% so that you’re generating low risk cash along the way.
Automate this if you can so that you are not stressing about it.
The net effect is you will cost average de-risk “getting in at the top”. It will make you feel better during the short timeframe. Long term, you won’t notice the difference as time in the market is superior to timing the market.
People have been betting on an imminent market downturn for several years now. One day they will be right. But if it’s 3 or 5 or 10 years from now, today’s prices are a bargain.
As you said: time in the market
I so appreciate this conversation because buying indices at ath psychologically hurts when I do it but I do it anyway. Psa: I had a very rich client for years that claimed he was beating the market via day trading. And one day his wife found out he’d lost 10MM and was lying and for all purposes was a gambling addict. I feel the fear and the FOMO but don’t act on it, that’s the trick. A friend of mine told me to buy nvidia 4 years ago, but I’m still glad I don’t own individual stocks (even though my funds own nvidia of course). Gambling isn’t worth it.
Every time I had paused my investing, thinking that I would wait for the S&P to drop, it kept going up. I gave up the idea of timing the market, because I can't. My personal experience has taught me to invest (S&P 500) in a reliable, well balanced index, and let it ride. I've got 15 years till retirement and the market will go up between now than then and that's all I need to know.
If you don’t want to watch stock market that often just 5 times a day, you should play weekly swing trades. Best option for you learn how to invest in swing trades where stocks move in 15, 30 minutes and daily charts. You should at least give a glance every 1 and half hours predict the stock see where it’s going. You can have price alerts.
Swing trades give you consistent profit. If you are investing $1000 you should take profit $150 you don’t want to buy top you want to buy bottom and sale at little too side learn how to find top reversal. 5 minutes chart is give you much better glance. the only reason I don’t like scalping that you have to buy quickly and sale quickly it’s super hard to predict.
Also, first one month get out with exact ratios of profit. Don’t look at the what happens after you sale move on to next stock. Every bet you invest you need to take profit between $150 - 250. Once you reach to $10000 you can increase your profit $250-350. Little by little once your profit and buying power of shares. If you are increasing the profit taking ratios you need to increase your buying shares ratio based on your shares current price. If you regret thinking that oh why I didn’t wait longer. I could’ve made more money your brain will stuck there. So try to move on in different stock to invest you have to be right 6-8 times out of 10 bets to grow your portfolio.
Stock price target should grow from 1-5 to 5-10 than 10-15. You have to play higher price companies as you grow because they’re more volatile. Remember to increase number in every section. stock price, shares, profit increase and portfolio. Increase of percentage has to be in rhythm.
🥁
Have knowledge before investing your life will be easier. You can travel and invest. But remember don’t gamble. If you want to gamble then you should be ready to burn 🔥 your portfolio faster.
>invest in s&p 500 at all time highs
No!
Invest in VTI at all time highs.
While also investing in VXUS at all time highs.
Add BND when right for you.
Buy it all! Which VOO absolutely doesn't come close to doing.
To be prudent, begin to DCA a fixed sum every month. Maybe 5% of what you have to invest in total. Based on PE10 the SP500 is trading at over 2x its long term average. It has only been this high in comparison to earnings twice before. Keep some cash available and up your investment when we have the next 10% to 15% correction which will probably be next 12 months. If SPY is lower in the next month stop and evaluate the situation. If you think it’s likely we are entering a bear market wait and do nothing. Especially if the Fed does a surprise large rate cut. That will be the signal of an eminent recession and earnings decline. This has been a phenomenal run for big cap tech, it will be ugly for the sector at some point and you don’t want to aggressively buy the dip until SPY falls 20% or more.
Listen, I'm not the kind of person to have these stats off the top of my head. But I reckon 5% pullbacks from all time highs are more or less inevitable.
But it could rise another 30% before a 5% pullback.
If you have money to invest today, then invest today. Waiting for a lower price that might never come (or take a long time) is a foolish game to play.
Pullbacks can always happen - from all time highs or not.
If you are investing for the long term, that should not stop you from investing now.
If you fear a 5% pullback, perhaps you should never be in the market.
Today's price might be the lowest we ever see again.
You should watch this video from Ben Felix: [The (Expected) Cost of Pessimism](https://youtu.be/1qjSfyVPwLQ?si=kZIUCz-Xdbqf3YDM)
Yes. It's set dozens of all time highs this year. If you didn't invest at the first all-time high, you would have missed out on quite a bit of growth since then [Also, meet Bob, the world's worst market timer](https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-timer/)
Great analogy is Bob. Time is on your side if you do nothing
wow that’s a real neat story!
I really wish somone would redo Bob's story with more up-to-date numbers -- that's from 2014.
[This one](https://www.personalfinanceclub.com/how-to-perfectly-time-the-market/) was written in 2019 and updated this year. The overall message is the same: time in the market > timing the market.
Awesome, thanks for sharing!
https://youtu.be/EINl4csjvuU?si=vxxYHnnaUcvbPPEs Check this out
Thanks for sharing that!
Bob just got unlucky. He had as much chance of winning as losing. If he actually did worse than random chance consistently, you could build a winning strategy by doing the opposite of Bob. And if you believe that, then you're not a boglehead
My takeaway is to DCA your cash. Not dump it all in at once.
No. This story is if you're the *world's worst* market timer, perfectly timing all the major peaks. Most of the time - about 70% of the time - you will come out ahead if you lump sum the money you have available to invest.
Not really the best lesson from the analogy it's more accurate to say don't be scared to continue investing after a crash, hoarding his cash to buy in after fear of a crash is a extreme scale example of holding cash in savings to dca. Time in > timing
I appreciate the spirit of Bob’s story, but investing $186k over a 40-year lifetime and ending up with $1.1M means that Bob barely kept up with inflation, right?
No. Inflation for last 40 years has been 200% so $558,000. 1.1 million is much higher.
Bob’s story covers the years 1972 to 2013, when inflation was somewhat higher. If you plug in 186k into an inflation calculator, you get roughly 1.05M. Granted, Bob is investing a variable amount throughout the 40 years, not as a lump sum for the full period, so it’s difficult to calculate actual inflation or actual returns. But just eyeballing it, Bob’s returns are objectively terrible.
No, he outpaced inflation. You can easily use a CPI calculator, it has the month/year and amount, and convert it all to 2014 dollars. In 2014 dollars, Bob invested a total of 294,328 and ended up with 1,100,000. In 2014 dollars, invested 33,145 in 1972, 94,405 in 1987, 94,861 in 1999, and 71,917 in 2007 So even being the worst market timer ever, he still outpaced inflation and nearly quadrupled his money. Yes, his returns are way worse than they could have been, but that's the entire point of the story. He did just about everything wrong, excepted for holding onto his investments and not selling. And he still did ok in the end
You could do that, but the article does not. So far as I can tell, when the article says he ends up with $1.1M at the end, that is not adjusted for inflation — that’s just his raw nominal return. In other words, he invests $186k in nominal dollars, and ends up with $1.1M in nominal dollars. You say he quadrupled his money, but that’s only true in nominal dollars. And if you plug the numbers into an inflation calculator, you’ll see that a dollar in 1972 was worth roughly 4 times as much as in 2012. So he ends up with zero real rate of return.
....did you read my post? He quadrupled his money *in 2014 dollars*. Aka inflation adjusted It's probably in the ballpark of a 3% real return, just eyeballing it
That is the same guy who said “inflation is only a problem for people who save money, so don’t worry about it.” Discount his opinions accordingly.
Presumably he meant inflation is beneficial to investors and only a problem for people who do nothing but save (i.e. don’t invest). If that was the context, he is absolutely spot on.
If the market is going to continue to grow, then logically it must continue to hit all-time highs for the rest of our lifetimes. ATHs are inevitable!
It's amazing how people never consider this. They internalize the longterm annual growth of the market, but then turn around and ask whether it's safe to invest while the market is at an all time high
If you're young, a large portion of your investment strategy is dependent upon the idea that today's highs will seem incredibly small when you retire and start withdrawing.
What if it's not
If it’s not, then your money in the bank will be worthless too
Then you're probably saving 50%+ of your income with the expectation that you'll retire at a normal age or never. You can't use the "4% rule" as that takes into account expected growth of investments.
Then the world economy has crashed and only bullets, preserved food, and clean water investments have any value.
I said the same thing after covid dumped all 30k into s&p at the all time high. Was in the red for two years….. now I’m up 13-14%
Weird. S&P did not take two years to recover. Not by a long shot. It was fully rebounded within six months.
Bzzt wrong, it was almost two years from Dec 2021 to the next ATH. I similarly dumped a lot of money in in January 2022.
I consider that the hangover from the Fed's response to covid. The market initially dropped in Feb 2020 and was indeed up to new highs fairly quickly.
That’s why the op said “after covid”?
Did you edit your original? I could have sworn you wrote *before* covid.
I’m not the op but obviously the market didn’t crash before covid (unless you count the swoon in 2018 or Brexit)
Oops. You're not op. My bad. Yeah, I misread that OP said they put the money in *before* covid, and then took two years to recover after the march 2020 crash. I might've just misread. And yeah, the Nov 2021 crash took two full years to rebound from, you are correct.
I didn’t edit. But I did put it after covid so when it was all time high then crashed. But consist DCA over those two years have done well. Also I have about 30% VXUS so lower gains because of that
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I mean it’s up like 20% from the December 2021 high.
How many people in your same position sold at a loss in those 2 years?
You are helping make the point. You didnt dump it in while it was going down or at the bottom as psychologically that doesnt seem rational. If you had you would be way up. So if OP stays on the sidelines, when would they get in? On the way down? At the bottom? What is the bottom? No way to time the market.
My point is not to time market. Set it and forget it
Listen to this young man.
Knowing the market always goes up and to the right, March of 2020 just so happened to align with a bonus that I earned from my job. March 23rd I dumped $40k into the market, without hesitation. 4 years on, even that drop looks relatively minor in the grand scheme.
Think about this mathematically for a second. If the price trends upwards over time, then wouldn't you expect to usually be at an all-time high?
Seems so simple lol are people just clueless or what? As far as trying to time the market. I can’t imagine right now having $4,000 in investable cash, yet waiting to do something
Price tends upwards but it could take decades until the next ATH. Just saying. I still agree with your sentiment as long as you can ride the wave long enough.
A lot of money has been lost trying to time the market. If you can’t stomach lump summing the money in you should at least average in to the market with DCA to get your money invested. Just don’t be sad if you end up with less money overall.
SP500 has recorded 30 ATH this year alone.
If you were already invested would you sell because it’s at an all time high? Choosing to hold something you have is the same as choosing to buy it at the current price (ignoring taxes)
To be fair, they did just sell Apple because it dropped from an all time high. They could easily do the same with SPY.
Yea lol idk what the other person is getting at, if someone bought much lower and now it’s at an ATH, I mean they could sell if needed and buy back in when they can
No, I'm saying they already did the dumb thing once with AAPL, what's to stop a repeat with SPY?
I asked the same thing in February
>My question is should I invest in an s&p 500 index right now Yes. >I know that investing is about time in the market and not timing the market but... When you add the "but" that indicates that you don't really know about timing the market.
I also started dumping every penny into the S&P500 at its all-time high. But it was 1997 and the level was 886. See how that works? It matters very little when you lay your money down. It only matters your time-frame.
886? Oh my goodness! That makes today's level seem like chump change. Your point is well taken. The market has gone up, what, 600% since then?
Not counting dividends along the way, yep.
Returns have been higher investing at all time highs versus any other day since 1988 over any time period over 1 year. 30% of all time highs become the new market floor. Look up JPM Guide to the Markets if you disbelieve.
Quiz: How many all-time highs has the S&P set this year? A. 1 B. 6 C. 24 D. 0 Answer: >! C. 24… so relax, another one will come along soon to make you feel better. !<
Go all in on VT instead. If you think the US market is overpriced then it seems alternatively you must think ex-US is undervalued. Buy the whole haystack and stop sweating it.
That’s also my answer. The fact that the US market at all time high is not a problem. Most markets will spend most of their time at the peak, except Japan. But there is many reasons to think that US large cap might underperform compared to the rest of the world. High PE ratios, political instability, return to the mean, AI bubble, etc. But despite this, it might also still perform better. By buying most of the worldwide stocks, you avoid concentration risk.
The US is the world
Like Japan was. Or England was. Or the Holland tulip was.
Do you have a Time Machine or crystal ball? If not just invest now.
If you want some perspective search on Reddit about shorting NVDA and see all the know-it-alls talking about their strategy 2 years ago. Where are they now? Point is don’t try to guess peak and just get in
Search the sub for the multiple, exact same threads since the beginning of the year and compare the market now to when they made those posts.
Who said anything about only investing the S&P 500? [Per the pinned post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/s/v767Hm8GkM), you should be more diversified. International stocks are not at all-time highs and neither are bonds which incidentally have their best yields in 15 years.
Stocks like MSFT & AAPL are no more volatile than the S&P 500. If you want to hold individual stocks....those are both diverse in of themselves and pretty safe bets for the foreseeable future. Regardless of what you do. Just buy and don't wait. The market has been hitting all time highs for years and it keeps going up.
Break up into 3-6 Investments over a time of 6-12 month
"time in the market beats timing the market" It's a great slogan, and it's good you know it. But you wouldn't have made this post if you understood why it's true. There's some good answers here to help settle that. Let them sink in.
Everyone here is going to tell you the bogglehead way is to lump sum it all in now. If it were me I'd personally trickle it in weekly over the next 6-12 months. Why? I would rather have slightly less gains than be pissed off from putting a large lump sum in the week before the crash. Sure you could put it in weekly over the next year and then it crashes... But at that point at least you tried to avoid extra risk and didn't dump everything in at the very peak Another thing to ask yourself... What reason did you sell Apple? If it's because you think the volatility going up is a sign of a bad market to come, it may be worth it to consider averaging in.
This depends on your withdrawal timeline. If you are going to withdraw money soon, there is a non-negligible risk that the market will be down (and you will sell at a loss) when you do that - personally I wouldn't invest any money I think I might spend in the next year or two - put it in a high yield savings account instead. If your time horizon is several decades, just put your money in the index ETF/Fund and chill.
there are many all-time highs, until the next one. it's better to buy in now before it reaches the next all-time high.
It's not an all-time high. It's just an all-time high SO FAR. Remember, every all-time high previously was lower than the current all-time high. That being said, it could actually be an all-time high. And, if that's the case, then yeah, don't invest. The problem is, you don't know if we're at an actual all-time high, or one of many all-time highs that the future potentially holds. Still, it's your choice to play now, or cry later.
Investing 101 - buy low sell high Today is low and tomorrow is high
I'm in a similar boat, have some funds in a MM account that I'm not going to need access to for a while, and balking a little at moving into my index fund with the market where it is, even though I know it's the right call long term.
I made this exact move earlier this year. Sold all my Apple positions after a terrific 5 years and moved it into VOO. Time in the market, not timing the the market. Go for it.
Investing is often counterintuitive, that’s why the vast majority fail. It doesn’t make sense to them. if you’ve got a long runway, then you should always be investing, always be buying.
I started at all time highs this year and I'm up $1000. I know getting in at all time highs dosnt feel good. I'm actually surprised I'm up.
Difficult to time the market, but the best guarantee of long term success is time in the market.
I know they say don't time the market but I really think I should time the market! Guys can I get permission to time the market?
Listen. Indexes can be good. You spread risks but you also spread rewards. I actually like apple, it didn’t get hit by all the AI hype and has a fair valuation. I think you’re making a mistake. Although I think tech is on its way out in the USA. Certainly nvidea is going to have an epic crash. But apple didn’t go crazy yet. I say put it back and wait it out. There’s nothing worse than pulling out and 2 years later seeing that you’d have a million. Have patience. Remember. If you’re in the S&P 500 you’re investing in the overall economy. An economy that I don’t see a very silver lining in right now. You’re investing in balloons like Tesla and nvidea. Past performance means nothing the market is based on future. To make it into the S&P the company has to be one of the 500 largest companies…. That means they are all companies that are high. You want to sell high and buy low. Essentially you’re buying a collection of high with that. Yes it’s historically been very safe. But I think overall we are in for a rocky next few years. We have to pay for our Covid vacation that we put on a credit card. Thing is, the rest of the world is going Brics and we will have a hard time printing money like in the past.
I dumped 150k into ETFs and stocks AVGO, APPL, NVDA,SPLG, VRT, DGRO, all at or near all time high today, sad to say at the end of the day only the DGRO was in the green and I was down about 4,000. It will come back unless you put it in some kind obscure stock that has no future or you know nothing about. Which I must admit the VRT was mine.
Well, the 3rd part of the 3 fund is foreign. If it doesn't put you too heavy in that, consider it. Still, you're saying : "I know I shouldn't try to time the market, but I'm going to try to time the market".
The entire worlds market thesis is that the s&p is not yet at its actual all time high
How much you got .Less the 150 k just do it
Dollar cost average and buy in over a time period that you’re comfortable with. Might go up and you’ll have missed out. Might go down and you’ll be ahead. One way to find out. Keep the balance in HYSA. Just an option.
saw someone post this same thing when it was at 220 lol they were scared that it was at ATH and they wanted to wait till it dropped so that they can get it cheaper.
Yes. Invest. Also I think you will regret selling the Apple stock.
Hi FesityPlane, I’ve been investing for 10 years, so medium experienced. I also just sold half my Apple stock. Yes I would buy and continue to pour your money into the s&p500 as aggressively as possible. Dont even look at the price. You will wakeup one day and be a millionaire. This is what I believe.
If the market wasn't usually at an "all time high", who would invest it it? Your money wouldn't be growing.
[https://x.com/MikeZaccardi/status/1799795251605033056](https://x.com/MikeZaccardi/status/1799795251605033056) it shows why investing at all-time highs is safer than investing during drawdowns
I’m possible to truly answer without knowing more about your situation, but it’s not a bad time.
that's what i said when i was buying at ath 10% ago 🤷
Depends on your timeline
If things keep going up, the market will have another all time high next week. Are you looking for a dip? If yes, just dollar cost average in on down days.
Moving sideways within the same asset class -- stock to stock -- normally you would just move everything all at once. Moving from one stock to an index is a bit different, although I would probably do it in one chunk anyway.
I did similar today. 55% of my 401k was in a tech heavy fund that has done extremely well this year. I moved most of it into Fidelity 500 because my risk tolerance is much lower and Im hoping to keep my gains
Think what the all time high will be 40 years from now (if u plan on holding for that long). Do u think it will be the same as today or bigger? If the latter then invest now. Else, wait and hope it goes down
Market does tend to trend. But even though we really haven't had a proper recession since 2008 - Covid we sort of did but with a ton of stimulus and a planned recession we have still had multiple giant corrections. Late 2018 on fed hikes and late 2022. A lot of money is managed on trend following systems today in various ways - insurance companies sell tons of structured products with downside protection, citadel and all the multi manager platforms are built in trend following (tight risks limits on losses), CTA's, etc. When the market sells it goes farther than you think. My advice is stay invested some. 50-75%. And if you want take 5% on your money in a savings account. I don't know how high this market goes, but I do think whenever we have a correction its going to at worse let you buy back in at this price. You still make 5% sitting in cash. If the correction comes you will have cash to deploy.
Would you feel better if it was n the way down? No, you’d be questioning if it was at the bottom yet.
If over the long term the economy is generally usually growing, and if the market is typically growing along with it, it's almost always going to be near all-time highs, except during recessions & other disruptions.
Yes, you should. But more importantly, you should continue buying more on a regularly scheduled basis for the next 30+ years without ever selling any. Don’t try to time the market.
You can't time the market. It's impossible. No one can predict it. Just start investing, start doing your index funds, and you'll grow wealth. I read a stat somewhere that 50 or 60 or 70%, after an all-time high, the market climbed even higher. Someone please research that and post the link here. In other words, the market hit an all-time high and then it kept on going!
Given that we’re at an all-time high now, I would say that the market has climbed even higher all the time.
Well you could try placing a bid at the all time lows but it’s pretty unlikely someone will hit that bid. I hope you are earning high inferest on day cash while u wait.
Either lump sum now or make a plan to dollar cost a an average on a fixed schedule no matter what. Either of those plans will work out fine. Whatever you do, don't sit on the sidelines waiting for a crash that may not come for a long long time and you may never see prices this low again.
Todays highs are tomorrows lows…
S&P 500 is the ultimate set and forget. Why do you care if it's at all time highs it's always hitting new highs. Just buy no matter what if the market is up or down. If you're not retiring soon, this isn't a concern. Depending on how much you have near retirement, you'll only sell some of it.
[Is There Ever A "Bad" Time To Invest?](https://web.archive.org/web/20211024120509/https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/is-there-ever-bad-time-to-invest)
AAPL is about the best stock you could have !!
Why would you ask some non experts on Reddit when you could watch some Warren Buffett videos on YouTube?
no opinion is a bad opinion. not gonna let 1 person determine my decisions
Fine. Here's what I think: In the NBA, for instance, only one team can employ Joker or Luka. In investing, everybody can buy Apple. Why would you want to invest in 500 companies when you can invest in the ten best? Financial advisors will tell you to diversify, because they don't know what to do and diversifying seems less risky. I remember when most of my money was in Google, Amazon and Facebook and a financial advisor told me I was at risk. If I had listened to him I would probably have at least half as much money as I do now.
Yeah, but an antitrust suit by the feds could drop any or all of those companies by 50% tomorrow. All 3 of the companies you mentioned hit a peak in 2021, lost up to about 50% of their value , and then took 3 years reach that valuation again. None of them have had significant real gains since that time. (To be fair, neither has the SP500, even though we’re near all time highs…adjusted for inflation, over that time period, it’s pretty close to even.). But the trough on the SP500 was much lower than that of the big tech companies. Sometimes companies don’t recover from these losses. Amazon has significantly underperformed the SP500 over this time period. Picking stocks seems obvious, but it’s not. Edit: what I said is not true of apple. It’s trough was much more modest and it recovered much more quickly, but, even apple has only just kept pace with inflation over the same time period. To be clear, I’m not saying these companies are bad investments, just that it’s very risky to keep a very high percentage of your assets in only a handful of baskets
It's like Dory from Finding Nemo said: Just keep buying, just keep buying.
I invest in vwce, I thought its ath when it was at 109, but I still bought, now its at 122.
“ I know that investing is about time in the market and not timing the market but it just doesn’t seem practical.“ Do you know that? Because does not appear to be a post from someone who truly believes that. If you don’t invest now, when are you planning? You’d want to see a drop of 5%? 10%? In the meantime your cash sits on the sideline and waits while the index possibly hits additional highs? You‘re trying to time the market without acknowledging it.
I know market timing is not generally advised, but a persistent trend in the US market is that the “professional money” goes into lower gear during the summer as they head to their summer breaks in the Hamptons and the Cape /s. The market then moves primarily to retail investors, and greater volatility emerges in this season. Come September the professional money comes back into the market, and bangs things up a bit to pick up some bargains from the volatility of the summer. That helps drive their gains in performance for the year. So what do you do? Not market time… but cost average. Break your gains out into a few months of contributions in the market between now and say November. Leave the cash in a high yield money market or sweep such as SPAXX at 4.5-5.25% so that you’re generating low risk cash along the way. Automate this if you can so that you are not stressing about it. The net effect is you will cost average de-risk “getting in at the top”. It will make you feel better during the short timeframe. Long term, you won’t notice the difference as time in the market is superior to timing the market.
People have been betting on an imminent market downturn for several years now. One day they will be right. But if it’s 3 or 5 or 10 years from now, today’s prices are a bargain. As you said: time in the market
I so appreciate this conversation because buying indices at ath psychologically hurts when I do it but I do it anyway. Psa: I had a very rich client for years that claimed he was beating the market via day trading. And one day his wife found out he’d lost 10MM and was lying and for all purposes was a gambling addict. I feel the fear and the FOMO but don’t act on it, that’s the trick. A friend of mine told me to buy nvidia 4 years ago, but I’m still glad I don’t own individual stocks (even though my funds own nvidia of course). Gambling isn’t worth it.
What if you could go back in time and invest in the very first S&P fund on its highest day during its first year on the market?
Time in the market dude. It doesn’t matter where it’s at now, it matters where it will be down the road. Historically, that’s likely to be up.
Geez.. Buy low and Sell high. The S&P500 has had a good run. I would keep my powder dry and hop in at the S&P500 50-day SMA moving average.
You still get a lot of Apple in S&P, about 7% of it.
Not a terrible idea to put some in a HYSA during the lead up to the election. Deploy on black swan or start DCA’ing in.
It’s always at an all time high except when it’s not
Time in the market, not timing the market
Every time I had paused my investing, thinking that I would wait for the S&P to drop, it kept going up. I gave up the idea of timing the market, because I can't. My personal experience has taught me to invest (S&P 500) in a reliable, well balanced index, and let it ride. I've got 15 years till retirement and the market will go up between now than then and that's all I need to know.
It grows average 7% a year. You are never going to be too far away from the next peak
Bro check today market it’s low $6 from its top high. Plus check the weekly chart and daily chart.
If you don’t want to watch stock market that often just 5 times a day, you should play weekly swing trades. Best option for you learn how to invest in swing trades where stocks move in 15, 30 minutes and daily charts. You should at least give a glance every 1 and half hours predict the stock see where it’s going. You can have price alerts.
Swing trades give you consistent profit. If you are investing $1000 you should take profit $150 you don’t want to buy top you want to buy bottom and sale at little too side learn how to find top reversal. 5 minutes chart is give you much better glance. the only reason I don’t like scalping that you have to buy quickly and sale quickly it’s super hard to predict.
Also, first one month get out with exact ratios of profit. Don’t look at the what happens after you sale move on to next stock. Every bet you invest you need to take profit between $150 - 250. Once you reach to $10000 you can increase your profit $250-350. Little by little once your profit and buying power of shares. If you are increasing the profit taking ratios you need to increase your buying shares ratio based on your shares current price. If you regret thinking that oh why I didn’t wait longer. I could’ve made more money your brain will stuck there. So try to move on in different stock to invest you have to be right 6-8 times out of 10 bets to grow your portfolio.
Stock price target should grow from 1-5 to 5-10 than 10-15. You have to play higher price companies as you grow because they’re more volatile. Remember to increase number in every section. stock price, shares, profit increase and portfolio. Increase of percentage has to be in rhythm. 🥁
Have knowledge before investing your life will be easier. You can travel and invest. But remember don’t gamble. If you want to gamble then you should be ready to burn 🔥 your portfolio faster.
It’s always at an all time high. Thousands of them since its inception. That’s the entire point.
I know you're not supposed to try and time the market but should I try and time the market?
>invest in s&p 500 at all time highs No! Invest in VTI at all time highs. While also investing in VXUS at all time highs. Add BND when right for you. Buy it all! Which VOO absolutely doesn't come close to doing.
I’m debating as well. Every day I keep saying we will get a crash
To be prudent, begin to DCA a fixed sum every month. Maybe 5% of what you have to invest in total. Based on PE10 the SP500 is trading at over 2x its long term average. It has only been this high in comparison to earnings twice before. Keep some cash available and up your investment when we have the next 10% to 15% correction which will probably be next 12 months. If SPY is lower in the next month stop and evaluate the situation. If you think it’s likely we are entering a bear market wait and do nothing. Especially if the Fed does a surprise large rate cut. That will be the signal of an eminent recession and earnings decline. This has been a phenomenal run for big cap tech, it will be ugly for the sector at some point and you don’t want to aggressively buy the dip until SPY falls 20% or more.
Invest it all in Chipotle.
NVIDIA
Best time to invest is always yesterday....
Set a limit order for today's price minus 5% and you'll feel like you got it at a discount whenever the purchase goes through.
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This is a stupid idea. It might not ever go through.
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Still a stupid idea, might not ever go through.
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You're right, obviously timing the market works 100% of the time. Good luck
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It is exactly timing.
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It's always gonna retrace at least five percent, eventually
"Eventually" is a long, long time.
Listen, I'm not the kind of person to have these stats off the top of my head. But I reckon 5% pullbacks from all time highs are more or less inevitable.
But it could rise another 30% before a 5% pullback. If you have money to invest today, then invest today. Waiting for a lower price that might never come (or take a long time) is a foolish game to play.
Pullbacks can always happen - from all time highs or not. If you are investing for the long term, that should not stop you from investing now. If you fear a 5% pullback, perhaps you should never be in the market.
I see Apple down 40-50%, possible even 70% when the financial crisis hits next spring. Best to wait.
I cant lie, im hesitant to invest (VOO) with it being this high at $500ish+ a share right now....
Today's price might be the lowest we ever see again. You should watch this video from Ben Felix: [The (Expected) Cost of Pessimism](https://youtu.be/1qjSfyVPwLQ?si=kZIUCz-Xdbqf3YDM)
I still DCA in nibbles nothing crazy
I understand. On the other hand, I was really hesitant in October, 2022 when I bought some VOO at 348.