I know I know, never time the market. But should I wait until a red day to throw $1k into VTI?
Just wondering what you guys are doing currently and a consensus. For Context, I have a decent portfolio already, and am looking to just throw some extra in, but should I wait for a big drop before throwing some money in? I don’t plan on pulling this money out for many years. I’m sure most of the responses will be don’t time the market, guess I just want to know if you guys are doing the same in this current bull run.
Thanks! I appreciate it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/1tb1tk1/are_you_investing_right_now/
Posted by Dools92
24 Comments
Just look at the 10 year history of VTI. Waiting for a crash could mean you miss out on a huge amount of gains.
Dollar cost average if you can. It does not matter if you get in +/- 1% over +100% gains over 10 years
I have budgeted to put money away into my investment account every month… I’m continuing to follow that plan. I’m in my 30’s, so at this point if the market goes up, great, if the market crashes, I have 20-30 years of time to recover. I’m not going to try to time this all out because for all I know the SNP500 hits 10k before the AI bubble bursts and then it crashes back to 8k.
Yes. In fact I’m scraping the dregs beyond my regular buys for cash to throw at some companies at fantastic prices right now.
Since it’s a long term investment jump in now and don’t think about it. To repeat the old saying time in the market is better than timing the market.
I put money into VTI every paycheck. I have plenty of time before retirement if the market crashes.
I invested right before the recent dip and was annoyed but if I waited even longer I would’ve missed gains.
Yes I am investing
No you shouldn’t wait
Throw it in today. If your investment horizon is long enough none of this worrying will matter. Time in market > timing market etc etc
I’m not, but that’s because I don’t have the money. If I had extra money, I’d be putting it in VOO. VTI is fine, if that’s your thing.
In the long term it doesn’t really matter whether you time your investments. Read this article from Schwab:
https://www.schwab.com/learn/story/does-market-timing-work
Literally always
You literally posted this on a ‘red day’.
Are you a bot?
30 years from now every stock is gonna be up. Just buy
Just set that shit to auto-buy and never worry again. Learn from my mistakes 😭
I’m always investing. Investing more when people are scared.
Dollar cost Average your way in.
What I have right now is a simple system: my monthly dca (I invest at the same time regardless), and my dry powder (in a hysa for when I see good opportunities). This extra dry powder comes into play when I see the opportunity to strike, if not it accrues interest
Honestly, if your time horizon is “many years,” the bigger risk is usually spending too much energy trying to optimize the entry instead of building the habit of deploying capital consistently.
Weirdly, people often become very precise about timing when the amount is relatively small compared to the long-term portfolio impact.
Doesn’t mean timing never matters — just that psychologically it can turn investing into waiting for the “perfect moment” that never really feels obvious in real time.
I’ve noticed a lot of long-term investors end up doing some version of:
“deploy most now, keep some optionality if volatility shows up later.”
Feels less like predicting the market and more like managing regret on both sides.
In my portfolio I have my conservative stocks and I have my more risky stocks.
Every single day part of my portfolio is up and the other part is down. So I’ve always got something to buy lol.
Whatever you do just don’t wait too long. Then you’ll miss the boat.
I automatically have investments transferred every month. The only time I paused was when I was on maternity leave and had no income.
In 10 years you won’t have any memory of where the market was where you bought in. Yes yhe market is moving red to green and back to red but the moves are relatively small and will be insignificant in the long run. Get in there.
um, if its just $1k just throw it in. $1k is pennies long term. the market could crash 50% and you’d only be down $500.
If it makes you feel better, I invested over 200K in DRAM yesterday, and am watching my 20K poof away today. It’s all part of the game.
Statistically, lump sum usually wins cause markets spend more time going up than crashing but honestly the bigger question is how you’ll react if VTI dumps 20% right after you buy. if that would make you panic or stop investing, just split the 1k over a few weeks for peace of mind. but waiting around for the “perfect red day” is where people get stuck watching the market run without them if it’s long term and the 1k isn’t life changing money for your portfolio, personally i’d just get in and move on.
This is the first time I’m not, at least not index funds like VTI. I believe, for US markets, there are too many structural issues that haven’t existed in the past.
The bond market looks like it’s about to implode.
I was excited for Covid’s buying opportunities. Now I’m not sure “buy the dip, hold for the rip” is a valid strategy in today’s world.