Web Wealth: A good time to invest? What the Web says
In a volatile financial market, you may wonder if it is safe to keep investing. While taking extra care is in order as stocks and bonds gyrate, many experts say staying the course is usually the best thing to do.
/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-pmn.s3.amazonaws.com/public/3VYDXN4ONJEHDAPYVM76KDGAII.jpg)
In a volatile financial market, you may wonder if it is safe to keep investing. While taking extra care is in order as stocks and bonds gyrate, many experts say staying the course is usually the best thing to do.
Fortunes are made during difficult financial times, investment writer Joshua Kennon says in an article at About.com titled, "Are bad economic times a good time to invest?" Uncertain times pose opportunities. "Warren Buffett has said that stocks are the only things people don't want when they are cheaper," Kennon writes.
The Motley Fool, an investment-information site, has a 13-step "how to invest" guide, for markets thick and thin, that opens with the statement "You are staring at a ticket to financial independence." The first link is to an "executive summary" of the steps, beginning with a description of the power of compound interest. Step 5 is to think very long term and develop a levelheaded temperament for investing. Another is to "discover great businesses" to invest in by looking into the companies whose products and services that you buy.
When is the best time to invest? Mark Mobius, executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, says in this post at Business Insider that mutual fund pioneer Sir John Templeton once answered, "The best time to invest is when you have money." Mobius says the point is that systematically investing over time regardless of market conditions - "dollar-cost averaging" - is an effective way to guard against attempting to time markets or buying and selling on emotions.
Or read Mobius' post at his blog here on the Franklin Templeton Investments site:
"It's never a good time to invest in the stock market," warns this post at dailyfinance.com, part of AOL Inc. "Do it anyway," it suggests. The reason: While there's no particularly brilliant moment to strike into investing, doing it with discipline over a period of at least 20 years smooths out the peaks and valleys of the economy and, usually, delivers results you can look back and smile about. Or as one section heading here puts it, "Time heals many wounds."
In uncertain financial times, the thing to do is . . . relax, says this post at grandparents.com, which clearly is geared for an older set with plenty to worry about when markets get volatile. It does go on to suggest that a downturn is a good time to reassess investments and, for example, check out investment funds that seem to be doing better than others in their categories.