Stock Market Sentiment Speaks: This Is My Strong Warning To You As the market has now struck the upper end of my long-term target set many years ago, it seems many have embraced this bull market, to the extent that they see no reason for it to end. However, that is usually the time one has to pay attention for the potential for it to come an end. The last 25 years have only reinforced the common perspective that the market "always comes back.
" Whether we are speaking about the manner in which investors have been trained in a Pavlovian fashion to believe in the omnipotent power of the Fed or whether we are speaking about the manner in which the market has always come back stronger after each larger drop seen over the last 25 years, there is one thing that has become a certainty in the market: Buy and hold is the ONLY way to go. In fact, I recently read a bullish article which reinforced this perspective, to which I saw the following two comments – which seem to personify the common feelings of the investor community: "Over (rolling) 30 year investment periods since 1986,, it has paid to be a bull, dollar cost average into a simple equities portfolio" "I think most people who are chasing stocks forget that. We all have different risk tolerances, but "buy and hold" IMO should fit everyone.
There's no reason to not have $VOO or $QQQ as a mainstay in your portfolio. And ignore the temptation to get in and out of the market. Time in the market far outweighs trying to time the mar.