Need Reinforcement to just invest now and not wait for further declines

[starguru]

Sold my ESPP shares and moved the money to my personal account.  Can't seem to pull the trigger on buying shares.  For some reason psychologically I want to wait till at least a down day to buy, and more seriously this correction that people seem to be waiting for.  GRRRR

Whats worse I expect a bonus and 2 RSU payouts over the next 3 months, so even if I pull the trigger today on the funds currently available, and there is a dip, Ill have more funds available to invest on the down turn. 

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME!!!???

[vivophoenix]

what if that 'correction' never comes, what if  this is the end of the 'dip'

the market always goes up. so you might as well just pull the trigger.besides  you don't reinforce/reward the behavior of timing, do it now.

[Garnacerous]

I like to think of it this way:

Lets say you purchase stock now and it turns out to be the peak and the market takes a significant decline. It took nearly 2 years before stocks hit rock bottom during the great recession. Therefore, if we see a correction that will significantly impact your portfolio, it likely wont occur overnight. You will have time to save more and buy in further at lower levels.

If its just a small correction (5% or so), stocks have a history of rebounding quickly, so you wouldn't be much worse for the wear. In my eyes, its a win-win to not worry too much about timing the market with your initial buy.

[starguru]

K, just did it.  Thanx

[starguru]

And just did one better; set up bi-monthly automated transfers from my checking to my personal investment account. 

[hodedofome]

the market always goes up.

Russians and Germans would disagree. I'm sure Japanese investors are wondering the validity of that belief as well.

[thesinecure]

for anyone who cares about this sort of thing, the dow has declined to not far away from it's 200 day moving avg, which tends to be a pretty strong point of support

the nasdaq a long way to go to have a similar setup (whether that matters or not)

purely based on technical factors, the dow and S&P should be coming toward the end of this "correction", so could represent a decent buying point for anyone inclined to follow such things

yes, these types of signals could be considered "timing", but thought i'd point it out to anyone interested in such things

[starguru]

wish i understood this stuff.  But my money is in, and I don't plan to need it for at least 10 years...Anyone use schwab?  Whats a good mutual fund to dump my automated investments in?  I can be pretty aggressive with this.

[Left]

my idea of invest now is that I ask myself do I need the money in the next few years? If no, I don't care if it goes down, I'll just wait for it to go back up then sell it at a later time for more than I bought it for. If I did wait to buy however: first, I'd be missing out on some dividend payments; second, I won't know when it is at it's lowest until it's too late to jump in and third, I haven't found a reasons to fear a market drop because I don't need the money right away.

This said, I kind of dollar cost average mostly because I don't have enough to lump sum it, I put money into 401k (into vanguard target fund, it's a 80/20 split). I front load my roth ira at the start of the year and twice a year I put it about 5k into taxable account to make the fees reasonable since I use scottrade.

[starguru]

One of the points I was making in my original post is that my compensation structure basically enforces dollar cost averaging, as I get big chunks 7 of the 12 months (2 ESPP periods per year, 4 RSU distributions per year, and 1 bonus).  So even knowing that there is more coming (so if there is a crash, there is more to go in), I still find it hard to pull the trigger...

[thesinecure]

for anyone who cares about this sort of thing, the dow has declined to not far away from it's 200 day moving avg, which tends to be a pretty strong point of support

the nasdaq a long way to go to have a similar setup (whether that matters or not)

purely based on technical factors, the dow and S&P should be coming toward the end of this "correction", so could represent a decent buying point for anyone inclined to follow such things

yes, these types of signals could be considered "timing", but thought i'd point it out to anyone interested in such things

well, looks like you missed this quick hit - since this previous post the Dow is up around 300 points or so

it's due to take a breather here, but you're back above the short term moving averages so it could move sideways and consolidate again or another move up

nasdaq already went to a new high, dow and s&p aren't far from the same

i wouldn't be a buyer at the moment, but i'd be watching for a quick pullback above the moving averages, if that happens i'd be inclined to hit the buy button again at that point

regardless how you do it, sooner or later you gotta start working in - otherwise you never get invested

[Chuck]

the market always goes up.

Russians and Germans would disagree. I'm sure Japanese investors are wondering the validity of that belief as well.

The AMERICAN market always goes up.

[rmendpara]

Sorry, no comfort to be had.

If you can't accept risk in your portfolio, then by all means keep it low risk/volatility, but be sure to keep your return expectations in check.

NO free lunches in the market.

[Scandium]

wish i understood this stuff.  But my money is in, and I don't plan to need it for at least 10 years...Anyone use schwab?  Whats a good mutual fund to dump my automated investments in?  I can be pretty aggressive with this.

SWTSX. If you're still wondering. Total US market, ER=0.09%.

Supplement with something international later. Schwab's international index fund (SWSX) is ok, but is mostly large cap and mostly developed markets. Some people don't like that but I don't worry much about it. Keep it simple