Is There Really Ever A Safe Time To Enter The Stock Market?

I was perusing through the dozens of financial sites I track every week, and came across this interesting article on Fool.com, What to Do If You Missed the Rally?

While there is nothing really aw-inspiring in the article there are some interesting points that could help the argument, is there really ever a safe time to enter the stock market?

A lot of it started back around the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 when many of the “professionals” were screaming to sit on the sidelines.

Jim Cramer beseeched us to sell, sell, sell. Shark-jumpers like Ben Stein, who had shrugged off the Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) subprime debacle and hustled us into financials like Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) at the top, suddenly decided that the stock market was rigged against individual investors.

By March, grown men wrung their hands like distressed schoolgirls on CNBC, lamenting the end of capitalism and hailing the dawn of the next depression. Even once-rational financial advisors — folks who are paid to know better — pronounced the death of buy and hold and told us to get “proactive” with our lifesavings.

In short, we got some crappy advice. How else do you lose nearly 60% in Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), one of the great success stories of the past decade? How else does a long-term investor saving for a distant retirement lose more than 60% in Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), a stock that subsequently hit all-time highs?

For the record, I apposed sitting on the sidelines around this same time; however, those that listened to these “professionals” ended up losing more money than ever as many stocks went on tear of the next 6 months, which confirmed that the initial selling occurred at the bottom. This is a huge no no when it comes to stock trading.

Now those that have sat on the sidelines essentially missed the rally, missed out on any potential gains, and now what?

What constitutes it is time to get back in the market? What if we wait too long and end up buying at the top of the recent rally? The more we question; the more we can fabricate answers in our minds to make use feel scared.

Now here we are: sitting on cash, singing the blues, waiting for a pullback. But what’s done is done. What matters is what we do now. So let’s talk through our options. We could simply sit tight. After all, exactly one-half of the “experts” you see on TV are convinced we’re due for a massive sell-off.

We could get better prices in a few weeks or months. On the other hand, isn’t this the exact same kind of thinking that got us into this mess to begin with? And even if we do get a pullback, 20 years from now, will we even remember if we caught the precise bottom? I doubt it. I think we have to get in.

The fact is that nobody can really predict what will happen and when. There is no perfect market, and trading requires a certain risk that EVERY TRADER MUST ACCEPT before entering the market. If you’re not game, then find somewhere else to focus your attention because real money is made in places few venture.