Good time to "jump in" the stock market for the 1st time investor?

[michelle b]

Ok one person will say " buy now everything is on sale!" buy low sell high right? But someone else will say " get out while you still can" if you buy now you will surely be sorry as we have not seen the worst of it. So is this a good time to buy or not?

[Momu]

We'll you always have to remember that the market will go up and will also go down. It is always good to buy stocks when the market is down so long as what you have chosen to buy is ultimately a good company with good earnings, good reputation, good CEO running,maybe low risk, and basically just a good company...that is where you research comes in place. Basically you have to choose a company with a BETA less than 1 or 1. A company with a beta of over 1 or 2 is on a high risk and basically times like this where economically were not doing so well you can say " get out while you can".

[Gary E]

We probably have not seen "the worst of it" but that doesn't mean that this is not a good time to start investing. If you wait until people know that the worst is over you will have missed a great opportunity to buy stocks when their prices are depressed compared to their value.

So you should start investing as soon as possible knowing that for awhile you are very likely to show net losses. This is especially true if what you will be doing is starting an monthly investment program. If you start now you will be investing on some portion the way to the bottom and all the way back up to the next peak. (You won't stop your monthly investing even when you are sure that the market is at a peak, but keep investing until your life circumstances dictate that you change.)

If you wait until you know "the worst is over" you will be lucky to get going anywhere near the bottom (many investors end up waiting until very near the next peak.) You will have missed most, or all, of the opportunity buy stocks at bargain rates. And you are likely to have spent what you would have been investing while you waited. So you will have a less invested and a whole lot less gains five years from now and will never catch up to where you could have been.

[MikeeyMan]

Buying low is better than selling low... Just my opinion.

But if you have a large sum that you want to invest... I would dollar cost average it into the market... Maybe 10% of it per month for the next 10 months... This will protect you if the market slips further... But you will still make money if it goes up from here.