Is the market too high to invest now?

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 In 2024 the stock market has hit a few all-time highs. It's up right now. If you're trying to get started with investing, you might ask yourself if this is your year, or if you should wait for a crash?

They say history doesn't tell you what will happen in the future, but the stock market is a place where we have a lot of history and if you're going to invest, you might want to understand how it's worked for the last 100 years:




As you can see, there were LOTS of points along the timeline where people invested at an all time high and it just kept going up, their shares were worth more the next month, year, day.

There were a few points where the market went down. Look at late 2007, for example. The S&P 500 was at an all time high of $1540. The 2008 housing crisis happened and it dropped as low as $760. Did the people who invested at $1540 lose money? Only if they sold their shares. If they held, they'd now have those same shares worth $5000 today!

Also notice that everyone who invested in 1995-2007 was investing at an "all time high" - but their shares did great.

We may likely never get those prices again. We can't go back in time. We just have to buy in at the $5000 now. 

I don't feel bad for the person who bought in 2007 and had to watch their shares drop, because they got to watch them go right back up again. They're doing great. If they kept investing during those drops, they'd have gotten even better prices, and are doing even better today.

The person I feel really bad for is the one who had money to invest in 1995, but didn't invest because the market was at an "all time high". They could have gotten in for $500, and their shares would be worth 10x what they are today. Think about it!

People are constantly trying to predict the next crash but it's really not relevant, and they're usually not correct. The market goes down, then back up. As you can see from the chart, it has recovered every time for the last 100 years. So who are you now, looking at an all time high? The 1995 investor? The 2007 one? They both made money! The only one who didn't was the one who skipped out and didn't invest at all. 

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