Investors are more likely to reach their long-term goals if they remain invested and avoid short-term decisions that may take them off course.
Staying the course during market volatility is often difficult for many investors. Some choose to move to cash investments, while others try to time the market. Regrettably, these investors are often buying high and selling low—and miss the rallies that follow the challenging periods.
Yet, staying invested through market ups and downs can help you stay on track to reach your investment goals.
Once you’ve determined how much you want to invest, setting up automatic transfers to your investment account or periodic investments can help you stay on track.
For example, investors often make suboptimal investing decisions when emotions take over, tending to buy out of excitement when the market is going up and sell out of fear when the market is falling. Markets do ultimately normalize, and when they do, those who stay invested may benefit more than those who don’t. Consider this:
- By missing some of the market’s best days, investors can lose out on critical opportunities to grow their portfolio. Market timing can have devastating results.
- Seven of the best 10 days occurred within two weeks of the 10 worst days.
- The second worst day for the markets during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, March 12, 2020, was immediately followed by the second best day of the year.
Trying to time the bottom is never considered a sound strategy for long-term investing.
Staying invested during periods of heighten market volatility is an important strategy as, historically, six of the ten best days in the market occur within two weeks of the ten worst days; those who miss the best days miss out on performance.
Thus, the decision to stay invested during market turmoil is often better than timing
when to sell and buy.
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