Markets have been very volatile lately. Up big one day and down big the next. We do know markets move quickly, and that’s been on display over the last month of trading, too. Right now, the stock market – as measured by the S&P 500 – is at prices we saw a little over a month and half ago. But we’re also at prices we saw in May and June of last year. And what was going on at that time? We were making ALL TIME MARKET HIGHS. So, we’re at prices that were all-time highs about a year ago and I bet you feel a lot differently as an investor now than you did back then, right? But the prices are the same.

Let’s look positively at this: the market is giving you an opportunity – possibly a one-time opportunity cuz maybe we never see these prices get any lower – to buy into good stocks at prices it was offering about a year ago. And since that point a year ago, the market went up over 14% before coming back down. And what do we know about the market? It NEVER stops making new all-time highs, but it NEVER makes new lows - even when adjusted for inflation. The market goes up and down, but it only has one true direction, and that is up.

So see right now as an opportunity to get in the time machine – a DeLorean, of course – and go back and invest in May of last year. How do you do that?

Make your 2022 IRA contributions, start contributing to a workplace retirement plan like 401(k) or 403(b), or bump up what you are contributing, if you have some extra cash because you have no high interest debt and your emergency fund is adequately funded, right there’s an opportunity for you to put some cash to work and to ultimately make money on that cash. If you don’t have additional cash available, that’s OK, just sit tight. We’ve seen this before and it just takes time to come out of it. And at some point in the future we’ll make new highs again, and you’ll look back and say the market was giving me a great opportunity and I took advantage of it.

If you need a professional to guide you through these tough times, contact me. And check out this blog post as a video here.