I am super frustrated with the market right now. I can foresee a huge crash coming but it never happens. Over the past few years I have been able to buy during large dips and that has worked out very well for me. I have literally been waiting since April of 2025 to invest the 8K in my Roth IRA. The market just keeps maintaining around 47 to 48K. I decided to start distributing the 8K into my existing stocks. Then I look at the market today and it’s at 49K. You can all thank me when I distribute my 8K and the market crashes the next day. That will be my luck.
Most of us watch the moving averages. For now the trends are upward. Economy is doing well.
If you are convinced a crash is coming, you may wait a long time. Or consider investing in bonds. Falling interest rates make them look attractive.
When things turn downward usually you have plenty of time to adjust. I trim high pe speculative stocks and hold good quality ones and wait for recovery.
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You are making some novice investing mistakes. I encourage you to stop trying to time the market with your 8k. You are more likely to be wrong than right - as you just experienced.
Dollar-cost average that 8k into your investments and don’t worry about missing the perfect buying opportunity (you already missed it).
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Hi @Hawkwin,
I wanted to give you 5 clicks BUT the limit is 1!
Exactly Correct.
Timing is a fool’s errand.
Since I started buying stock in March 1987, there have been a few significant draw downs in the market.
But the Actual number Pales in Comparison to All The Crashes That Were Forecast!
Gene
All holdings and some statistics on my Fool profile page
Profile - gdett2 - Motley Fool Community (Click Expand)
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My first year with my Roth IRA, I had a 70% return. Obviously buying during a dip is smart. I had an IRA years ago that I ended up cashing out because the market never made permanent gains. It would go up. It would go down. My investments never made any money. Very similar to the last 6 months. Until today when it hit 49K. I don’t think anyone can feel good about investing at 49K. Also, a lot of you are dollar cost averaging over decades. I just opened my current Roth about 4 years ago and only have 12 more years until retirement.
Many, many years ago when the TMF had a decent education page, they had an article that demonstrated two investors and their IRAs. Mr A had perfect timing and did a lump sum investment at the market bottom every year. Mr B had the worst timing possible and did a lump sum investing at the market peak every year. Over the ensuing 40 years, the average return was less than 2% points apart. The take home, you are most likely going to be in the middle and 1% is not worth losing sleep over.
Just dollar cost average a little each month. It is way more important to establish a habit of saving/investing.
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Yet another investing logical fallacy called the Gambler’s Fallacy.
I am no expert, by far, but I gain and lose more in a week (up $46k today) than the average person makes in a year - and I am probably on the lower end of investors at this site.
You know what I could not care less about, the Dow being at 49k. In fact, I could not care less about the Dow in general. It is 30 stocks - it doesn’t represent the market, and much less what I own. The very last thing I will ever do is make an investment decision based on the current price of the DOW.
Your fixation on the DOW is likely to cause you to miss out on opportunities. You sat on the sidelines last year while many of us, myself included, made over 50%. I just made all my max annual contributions (wife’s roth, HSA) today and will sleep well tonight regardless what the market does tomorrow - and I have less than 4 years until retirement.
As an aside, I will note this - I think timing to buy is silly and a fool’s errand. Timing to sell is a different beast. It is a rare opportunity to buy the market when it is down 20% and the longer you wait, the less reward, if any, will you receive.
The S&P 500 is up 22% since April last year. EVEN IF the market were to sell off 20% tomorrow, you still would be sitting on a missed opportunity.
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Just to clarify, I made my full contribution for 2024, added to my current stocks and then deposited the full 2025 contribution amount for 2025. I just haven’t bought stocks with that money yet. So yes, I haven’t made any money on that 8K but I have been watching my individual stocks and none of them have gone up much since April last year. Now that it is getting close to April again I have to invest that 8K for 2025.
Not sure about your comment that timing to buy is silly and timing to sell is a different beast. Nobody would sell at a loss so buying when the market is at an all time high seems foolish when I am purchasing stocks for the entire year in a lump sum. At this point I don’t have much choice but to either buy all at once in the next few months or dollar cost average a few thousand each month. Either way, my 2025 contribution will not be a big money maker in the short term.
And you don’t find that a bit problematic since the S&P has gained over 20% since then?
In a normal, non-recovery year, the market makes dozens of new all-time highs. You are committing a logical fallacy if you are avoiding investing due to a new all-time high. Period. Full stop.
The S&P made 57 new ATHs in 2024 - yet we continued to make another 39 of them since.
In 2019, there were 35.
In 2020, even with Covid, there were 33.
In 2021, there were 70.
Of course the market sold off in 2022 and then in recovery during 2023 so we did not get a new ATH until January of 2024.
The simple fact is that in a healthy market, new ATHs are common and frequent and nothing to avoid.
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Hi @Emitfudd,
I am not sure I understand what you are saying here.
You said you made your full 2025 contribution already. Is that correct?
Then you mention the above, about buying stock before April?
Just to clarify:
Once cash has been contributed to any IRA and it was done within the regulated time frame and amount, there is
- No Other Action Required!
You can invest it in stock, buy bonds, buy ETF’s or mutual funds, use it for cash-secured PUTS, leave it all as cash or any other of the uses that are allowed in the “container” that it is in.
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT SHORT-TERM!!!
Believe it or not, there will be years when your entire porfolio will lose value.
My recommendation: GET OVER IT RIGHT NOW!!!
(Sorry for shouting) but you need to understand that investing is Not a short-term endeavor.
If the thought of losses, short-term or long-term scares you, Do Not Invest in Stock!
Buy a Money Market mutual fund and get some sleep at night.
However, if you want to become rich, you need to up the risk factor and invest your money.
Once it is invested, you need to get past the fear to sell when things are going down. When the news is the worst, invest cash that you have. It may turn your stomach, but do it.
After Christmas of 2008, I moved some cash from our 2 cash annuity IRA’s to our brokerage IRA’s. One of the companies I invested in was Ford (F) at $2.45/share. By early March, it had lost more than 50%. Yet, on Jan 6, 2011, I sold about 1/3 of our Ford in each of our IRA’s at $18.05.
So, did it really hurt my investment buy “losing” that $1.25/share in early 2009?
Focus on the business and its future!
Does that help you?
Gene
All holdings and some statistics on my Fool profile page
Profile - gdett2 - Motley Fool Community (Click Expand)
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“I am super frustrated with the market right now. I can foresee a huge crash coming but it never happens.”
Emitfudd,
#1. If your “forecasts” never pan out, maybe you shouldn’t be making forecasts. Instead of trying to predict what might happen, focus instead on what is actually happening, and react appropriately.
#2. There is no such thing as “the market”. There are many, many, many markets, with each of them offering often different opportunities. The grains market isn’t the solar industry market, which isn’t the hospitality market, which isn’t the banking market, etc. So, pick one or two and learn them well enough that you understand their seasonal and cyclical ups and downs and can position yourself favorably.
#3. If the possibility of losing a lot of money frightens you, then don’t make big bets.
Yes, for sure. This investing stuff is scary. But what you should really be afraid of is the old age poverty you will suffer if you don’t stop dithering. You need to put together a small action plan, fund it modestly, and get off the sidelines.
Likely, you will meet some successes and some failures. About those “successes”, never attribute to skill what is better explained by luck. About those “failures”, always consider them a lesson from the market gods about what didn’t work and needs fixing.
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Well, by following Wpr101 over at Saul’s I have done ok. A little gun shy after ‘21-’22 loses so I jumped totally out several times.
However . . . twice now I wake up, see the stocks in the green, and bought all my portfolio that had a positive green slant left to right, no drops. Sometimes 4 hours into the open market. Both times I have done exceedingly well for the rest of the day. I am pretty much swing trading Wpr101’s portfolio. go figure
Please don’t try this at home kids. After all, my alias says it all. Just have a laugh with me.
MoneySlob
2025 ytd: 60%
2025 ytd: 6.61%
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Emitfudd, with the remaining 12 years you have for maxing out your Roth IRA each year, just plop the entire amount in during the first few trading days of the year every January into your desired AA of total stock market, + total international and forget about timing. You’ll thank me a dozen years from now. 
It’s nice that you finally got your 2025 contributions invested. However, your 2026 contributions should also have already been made, and invested at this point. Get going!
BB
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Bruce,
Two questions:
#1. In what sense is dumping money into markets on the basis of what a calendar says not “market timing”?
#2. What assurances can you offer that the next 12 years will be as favorable to passive, Buy-and-Forget investing as the past 12 have been?
The present situation seems to be this. The US Debt to GDP is 124%, and history suggests that anything over 90% has a negative impact on growth. US debt stands at $38.5 Billion, and foreign buyers are increasingly unwilling to bid for it. When the Fed/Treasury has to buy back the paper it prints, then the jig for the $US dollar will be up, and the US stock market crashes.
In short, too many years of increased financialization, as opposed to genuine economic activity, has created for a well-positioned, very few the appearance of wealth. But for the “average” person, making ends meet has become harder as inflation robs a bigger and bigger chuck of their purchasing power.
My prediction is this. A devastating, '30’s style depression might not be immanent, but it is inevitable if the US doesn’t cease its deficit spending, which the rest of the world is increasingly unwilling to subsidize. And I’ll make a second prediction. All of us will see that depression come within the next 12 years, and the paper wealth gained by dumping money into the equity casinos come Jan 1st or 2nd will melt away “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face, lighting an hour or two and then gone.”
I could be wrong about this, of course. But is expecting a rosy future the smart way to bet when what we know about the present augers otherwise?
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The last three years, this ratio has been at or near 120% and the market has had 3 straight years of above average returns.
If it isn’t immanent, then one probably should be investing for long-term.
If correct, then one might surmise that we have 5-6 years to invest before we really have to start to worry about such.
I go back to 2007/2008, the worst market in my lifetime. The market peaked in October of 2007. By June 2008 (8 months later), we had lost 22%. We did not hit bottom until March 2009, 17 months after it started. That seems like a long time in which someone can chose to get out and cut their losses. I recall working with many clients during that time that told me in advance that if the Dow got to 12000 or 10000 that they wanted to get out. That was their pain threshold - and a point at which they could still walk away with gains.
I grant you that you are probably correct - but as you stated, you can’t tell us when this will happen so sitting on the sidelines waiting seems rather foolish. I don’t know about you but my investment accounts have increased by more than 100% since Covid. Seems like the OP has similar performance (i.e. their 70% return in their first year). They can easily lose 20% and still have a 50%+ return. Avoiding investing with 12 years to go… seems foolish in light of such performance.
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[quote="Arindam, post:14, topic:122796"] My prediction is this. A devastating, '30’s style depression might not be immanent, [/quote]If it isn’t immanent, then one probably should be investing for long-term.
If correct, then one might surmise that we have 5-6 years to invest before we really have to start to worry about such
[/quote]
I find that prediction unlikely, but not impossible. We have had many pullbacks and retrenchment in the history of the modern stock market, but only two in the last 125 years approached the sort of “full collapse” you are talking about: 1929 and 2008.
That’s around 75 years between events - which is not a prediction, obviously anything can happen at any time, I’m just noting that such things are rare indeed.
Even when the economy gets screwed up in meaningful ways: think the dot-com fiasco of 2000 (and the entire telecom overbuild with it), or the evaporation of the NiftyFifty mania, or the OPEC effect on the market of the 70s, or the collapse of the US administration of Richard Nixon, even the entrance of the US into World War I, or the Savings & Loan debacle in the 1980’s - through all of those and more, the stock market may have pulled back (the “bear”) but saw nothing close to 1929 or 2008.
And, I note, for those paying attention, 2008 came with plenty of warning signs which an astute observer could have managed to spot with days, even weeks and adroitly exited from the market.
So while you may hear the jungle drums of impending doom, I would counsel a bit of moderation in your pessimism. Keep enough on hand to make it through a hard time, but don’t stick it all under the mattress because you are losing money through inflation (and the more invisible “opportunity cost”) all the time.
Or, as the song says, “Don’t worry, Be happy”. There should have been a verse that also said “But keep enough liquid for a rainy day”, but that might not have fit the melody.
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#1. I would lean on the side of the data that shows front loading (lump summing) into your Roth IRA at the beginning of each calendar year, over time, has the potential to provide a bit better performance than DCA, or waiting for “a bottom”. Your choice not to invest the 2025 funds all year would be a prime example of the wait not panning out in your favor.
Obviously, if one does not have the funds saved to lump sum into the Roth IRA at the beginning of the year, then periodic investing throughout the year as the funds become available until the max is reached works just fine as well. Our household adopted the approach of having the funds ready by the previous year’s end so that we could lump sum it during the first few days in January every year. This means that our 2025 contributions have been invested 12 months + two weeks thus far. Now this year is an exception based on me being up in the air about retiring or not. So I am periodic investing into our Roth IRAs to not surpass our income/wages in case of a retirement date (yet unchosen) occurs before enough income has been made to max both of our Roth IRAs.
#2. Fear sells. And you have bought it.
There isn’t much point in debating the difference from your side of the equation focusing on all of the doom and gloom, and my side of the equation focusing on the optimistic of long term investing. The noise is always there, and always will be there. Over the decades here on the Motley Fool message boards, the doom and gloomers have come and gone thousands of times. Our household has simply powered ahead over the past 4 decades using periodic investing to pay for college educations, a home, retirement funds, charity, and a good dose of DWZ experiences along the way. Will there be pullbacks, recessions, and dips in the markets going forward? Absolutely. Those are all features of the market.
BB.
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I have divided up my 8K into all my existing stocks as of a week or so ago. I get what everyone is saying. I am not scared to invest but buying during a dip is arguably going to earn me more than buying during a high. My first 2 years I was able to buy during dips and saw sizeable gains. With that being said, I am still at a total return of 60% even after buying at today’s prices.
Problem is, you don’t know when the dip will occur. And the dip may occur at a higher price than it is now.
I’ve known people who were dedicated “timers”. But, really, they were just guessing. A more relevant metric is “how much time do you have”. If you’re going to need that money in two years for retirement, that is a completely different decision than needing it in 20 years. In 20 years, the volatility smooths out.
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Much thanks for the pushback from everyone. What I said won’t convince anyone to change their investing plans, and vice versa.
The coming depression will be different than that of the '30s in dozen of details except one. Most stocks will lose value, maybe as much as 60% to 80%. Since losses of that magnitude are baked into the cake due to US debts, US deficit spending, and the present global disconnect between equity prices and genuine economic value, the question does arise of why engage the equity markets?
One light-hearted answer is that stock investing is a fun game. So why not play it?
For my having solved the problem of funding retirement decades ago by having created income-streams that are 4x my current expenses, whatever money I gain from stocks is unneeded, unnecessary money. If some future event, like a depression, takes those gains back, no biggie. I always knew it was phony money that could easily vanish into thin air if taxes and inflation didn’t take it first.
A second, more serious answer is that stocks aren’t the only investing game. There’s serious money to be made in currencies or, these days, in commodities which typically move counter-cyclically to stock prices, and this is where much of my risk money is at work. Also, one of these days, bonds might make a comeback, and that’s really my favorite market, not stocks.
The conundrum for the US is this. Interest on the $38.5 trillion of debt that the US owes now exceeds $1 trillion per year. If interest-rates rise, debt service will become increasingly impossible. But with foreign buyers increasingly backing away from bidding for US debt, the Fed/Treasury cartel will have only two options, default on the debt, or attract lenders by raising interest-rates. Either choice will trash stock prices.
Anyhow. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. What others do about putting more money into stocks or not is for them and their crystal balls to decide.