Ever had that sinking feeling? You know the one—when you finally muster the courage to invest your hard-earned money, and the market immediately decides it's the perfect time to take a nosedive.
Welcome to what I call "The Last Guest Syndrome."
It's that awkward moment when you arrive at the party just as everyone's starting to leave. Your friends have already enjoyed the good drinks, devoured the appetizers, and collected memories, while you're left with warm beer and the host checking their watch.
The market's got a sick sense of humor that way. It patiently waits—sometimes for years—while your friends accumulate gains and casually drop phrases like "my portfolio" and "diversification strategy" at dinner parties. Then, the moment you decide to join in? Boom. Correction time.
Look, I've been covering financial markets for years, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that timing the market is practically impossible. Even the folks who've spent decades glued to Bloomberg terminals still get it wrong. Frequently.
But there's something especially gut-wrenching about jumping in at what later becomes painfully obvious was the peak—like those poor souls who bought Bitcoin in December 2017 or (God help them) Peloton in January 2021.
What you're experiencing isn't failure—it's tuition.
Yep, you're paying tuition to the School of Market Reality. And if it makes you feel any better, everybody—and I mean everybody—has a similar story tucked away. I've interviewed hedge fund managers worth billions who still wince when recounting their early timing disasters. The difference? They stuck around long enough to balance those losses with some wins.
Here's what nobody tells you about markets: they don't move in straight lines. Never have, never will. The S&P 500 might average about 10% annually over the long haul, but that doesn't mean it politely delivers 10% each year. No, it's more likely to smack you with +30% one year and then a brutal -15% the next... just to keep you humble.
You've stumbled into what the eggheads in behavioral economics call "sequence risk"—basically, the order of returns matters a whole lot. Start investing right before things tank? You feel like a complete moron. Jump in before a bull run? Suddenly you're a financial genius (until the inevitable correction puts you back in your place).
What's particularly interesting about late 2024—having covered these markets since the pandemic—is that many seasoned investors were already nervous about valuations. The market had been on a tear, tech stocks were priced for perfection, and those "magnificent seven" shares were carrying way too much weight in the indexes.
The warning signs were there, but... well, hindsight's always 20/20, isn't it?
Instead of beating yourself up (which I know you're doing), consider a few things:
First, if you're investing for decades rather than days—which you absolutely should be—this rough patch will eventually look like a tiny blip. Remember the folks who invested right before the 2008 collapse? The ones who stayed the course eventually recovered and then some.
Second, you're now buying at lower prices! That's objectively better than what you were doing before. Dollar-cost averaging into this market means you're grabbing shares at what might turn out to be a nice discount.
Third (and I saw this during the COVID crash), downturns historically don't last as long as upswings. The average bull market runs about 2.7 years with a 114% gain, while bear markets typically last just 9.6 months with a 36% drop. Patience usually pays off.
I've interviewed hundreds of successful investors over the years, and they all repeat some version of that old Wall Street chestnut: "Time in the market beats timing the market." Your friends who are still up despite recent turbulence aren't investment geniuses—they just started earlier. Their secret weapon isn't stock selection; it's chronology.
So keep investing consistently, fight that urge to panic-sell (trust me, it's strong), and maybe find some comfort knowing you've already faced one of investing's toughest lessons right out of the gate. Lots of folks don't get this reality check until they've built up false confidence from years in a bull market.
Besides, starting near the bottom has its perks. The only way from here is up.
Well... probably.
