Geoffrey Seiler, The Motley Fool
Tue, January 20, 2026 astatine 6:50 AM CST 5 min read
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The sooner investors commencement investing, the amended disconnected they volition be.
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Investors should not fret trying to find the champion clip to statesman investing.
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The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF is simply a large halfway holding to statesman investing successful now.
There is an aged saying that the archetypal measurement is the hardest, and that is surely existent erstwhile it comes to investing. Like galore people, you whitethorn beryllium looking for the champion infinitesimal to invest; aft all, nary 1 wants to look astatine their investments a week oregon period aboriginal and spot that they are down. As such, with the banal marketplace adjacent all-time highs and speech of stocks being overvalued, you could beryllium reluctant to statesman investing now, with the fearfulness that you whitethorn beryllium buying stocks astatine the apical of the market.
The information of the matter, though, is that determination is seldom an perfect clip to invest. Sure, it's imaginable to put aft a marketplace dip and earlier a rally, but that benignant of timing is rare, adjacent for the astir seasoned investors. Meanwhile, bull markets thin to past a agelong time, and a J.P. Morgan survey recovered that the S&P 500 really hits all-time highs connected astir 7% of trading days, and connected a 3rd of those occasions, it ne'er trades lower.
If you're disquieted that the marketplace is overvalued, I besides wouldn't beryllium excessively concerned. Most of the metrics being utilized arsenic grounds that the marketplace is overvalued are backward-looking, not forward-looking, and close now, we're successful 1 of the biggest technological shifts of our generation, with artificial quality (AI) driving accelerated growth.
Based connected 2026 net estimates, galore of the largest companies successful the world, specified arsenic Nvidia, Alphabet, and Amazon, are arguably rather attractively valued based connected their maturation rates. The marketplace constitution has besides greatly shifted implicit the years, with tech stocks making up a overmuch greater percent than successful the past, versus erstwhile low-growth financials and cyclical industrials ruled the day. These stocks mostly conscionable person amended maturation and concern models and merit higher valuations.
What past has shown, however, is that the sooner you commencement investing, the better. Gains compound implicit time, truthful the sooner you commencement and the longer you clasp your investments, the greater they become. Five-hundred dollars is simply a large starting point, but it's conscionable a starting point. To physique semipermanent wealth, you're going to privation to consistently put $500 each and each month. This is called dollar-cost averaging, and it volition besides assistance region immoderate interest astir investing astatine the incorrect time, due to the fact that you'll beryllium consistently investing careless of whether the marketplace is up oregon down, helping creaseless retired your semipermanent returns.

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