I don't trust the stock market...

JulieRight

I've made a few threads on here asking for investing advice... im confused.. if now is a good time to invest.. it feels like the top and the bottom is a long way down..stock market is all time high during a pandemic.. this makes no sense at all.... stimulus money inflating prices.. what happens when all this ends... I've literally been stuck inside since Christmas on etoro... how many others are too around the globe...especially America? all this is inflating stock prices... what happens when life goes back to normal, furlough ends, and no more stimulus money...???? how on earth do people think the stock market will continue to rise at its current rate..just look at SPX500 chart...it doesn't look real..??? it's going to go down over the next 2-3 years like it did in the 2000 crash.... I really want to invest 150k but I know something bad is on the horizon... this virus has not been for nothing..... house market, stock market, crypto... the lot is about to crash... after the summer... I have a vanguard account... I won't invest it in.. now feels like top of the market.. just look at all the charts... it is comical.. everyone is stuck at home sucked inside a bubble... doing nothing but investing.... it is like a big pressure cooker... lift the lid i.e. covid restrictions and the market will plummet!!! 

this could all be wrong and it will continue to rise but how?? what will make it rise..?? the economic recovery?? 

JohnWinder

How? I suppose the same way it has for the past few hundred years. People will continue to labour and produce a surplus, much of which will be owned by the folk who employ those who labour, and those collecting the surplus will distribute it to other owners like you the stock holder or you the lending bond holder. Does it have to be any more complicated than that?

You might be right that armageddon is around the corner, but we've been through pandemics and wars before and come out smelling roses - some of us anyway.

Be a bit wary of thinking you can analyse the current state of affairs and make predictions, that's very hard. Invest we must, so just keep on at a risk level you're comfortable with.

Imagine the value of a market that rises consistently for two hundred years. Every single day during that time the market is at an all time high. Invest we must. It's probably easier to invest in equities now, for some people at least, than when there's been a stomach turning decline of 50% over several weeks and it's still falling. Try investing then, as good a time as it is.

george4064

If you’re really that sure there’s a crash in the horizon then why don’t you hedge your bets and drip feed (monthly/quarterly/annually) your £150k into the markets over time, maybe over 5 years or 10 years?

Statistically speaking in the long-run, you would be better off investing all the £150k in one go as a lump sum. But if it makes you feel better to drip feed it, then do that. 

Worst thing you can do is to continue sitting on the sidelines waiting for a crash to happen and either the crash never comes (so you never actually invest the cash) or a crash comes in the near future but you would’ve still been better off investing it all from the start as the markets didn’t pullback down to that level you could have invested in at originally.

Alexland

The stock market is not asking to be trusted by people who intend to spend the money in the next 4 months or whatever you said in the previous threads. It's there for people investing long term.

NorthernJoe

Do you think you're the only one who has this insight? 

Might some of the the large institutional investors not have seen it also? If this were the case, don't you think they would be selling stock at significant volumes?

If this were the case, your predictions would already be priced in & that "crash" would already be under way 

John464

JulieRight said:

I've made a few threads on here asking for investing advice... im confused.. if now is a good time to invest.. it feels like the top and the bottom is a long way down..stock market is all time high during a pandemic.. this makes no sense at all.... stimulus money inflating prices.. what happens when all this ends... I've literally been stuck inside since Christmas on etoro... how many others are too around the globe...especially America? all this is inflating stock prices... what happens when life goes back to normal, furlough ends, and no more stimulus money...???? how on earth do people think the stock market will continue to rise at its current rate..just look at SPX500 chart...it doesn't look real..??? it's going to go down over the next 2-3 years like it did in the 2000 crash.... I really want to invest 150k but I know something bad is on the horizon... this virus has not been for nothing..... house market, stock market, crypto... the lot is about to crash... after the summer... I have a vanguard account... I won't invest it in.. now feels like top of the market.. just look at all the charts... it is comical.. everyone is stuck at home sucked inside a bubble... doing nothing but investing.... it is like a big pressure cooker... lift the lid i.e. covid restrictions and the market will plummet!!! 

this could all be wrong and it will continue to rise but how?? what will make it rise..?? the economic recovery?? 

You seem to have covered everything except the inflation risk from holding cash

Zanderman

JulieRight said:

I've made a few threads on here asking for investing advice... im confused.. if now is a good time to invest.. it feels like the top and the bottom is a long way down..stock market is all time high during a pandemic.. this makes no sense at all.... stimulus money inflating prices.. what happens when all this ends... I've literally been stuck inside since Christmas on etoro... how many others are too around the globe...especially America? all this is inflating stock prices... what happens when life goes back to normal, furlough ends, and no more stimulus money...???? how on earth do people think the stock market will continue to rise at its current rate..just look at SPX500 chart...it doesn't look real..??? it's going to go down over the next 2-3 years like it did in the 2000 crash.... I really want to invest 150k but I know something bad is on the horizon... this virus has not been for nothing..... house market, stock market, crypto... the lot is about to crash... after the summer... I have a vanguard account... I won't invest it in.. now feels like top of the market.. just look at all the charts... it is comical.. everyone is stuck at home sucked inside a bubble... doing nothing but investing.... it is like a big pressure cooker... lift the lid i.e. covid restrictions and the market will plummet!!! 

this could all be wrong and it will continue to rise but how?? what will make it rise..?? the economic recovery?? 

If you really think 'everyone is stuck at home investing' then you have a very odd view of the world. 

Most people don't invest, They're too preoccupied making ends meet.

And, frankly, if you don't trust the stock market, steer well clear of it, though from your threads and comments on here you seem to be obsessed by it.  Most other people aren't.

Alexland

Zanderman said:
And, frankly, if you don't trust the stock market, steer well clear of it, though from your threads and comments on here you seem to be obsessed by it.

It must be frustrating trying to rationalise using the wrong tool for the job. For 4 months the OP should be looking at cash savings rather than wasting time getting annoyed that stock markets are very unpredictable over the short term.

Voyager2002

At the moment you are investing in cash: and personally I think that the pound sterling is a very bad investment (Brexit and related concerns). You are free to invest in US dollars, Euro, Swiss france, Chinese Renminbi... if you like cash, but expert opinion is that inflation is coming back so that cash in any currency is not a good idea. Then there is gold of course, or oil, coffee, or even chicken manure!

Maybe the smart thing to do is divide your capital between all these kinds of investment.

Bravepants

It is what it is...being unpredictable over the short term is just the stock market doing what it does. Steer clear if you need your money in the short term, say less than 5 years. 

AnotherJoe

JulieRight said:

I've made a few threads on here asking for investing advice... im confused.. if now is a good time to invest.. it feels like the top and the bottom is a long way down..stock market is all time high during a pandemic.. this makes no sense at all.... stimulus money inflating prices.. what happens when all this ends... I've literally been stuck inside since Christmas on etoro... how many others are too around the globe...especially America? all this is inflating stock prices... what happens when life goes back to normal, furlough ends, and no more stimulus money...???? how on earth do people think the stock market will continue to rise at its current rate..just look at SPX500 chart...it doesn't look real..??? it's going to go down over the next 2-3 years like it did in the 2000 crash.... I really want to invest 150k but I know something bad is on the horizon... this virus has not been for nothing..... house market, stock market, crypto... the lot is about to crash... after the summer... I have a vanguard account... I won't invest it in.. now feels like top of the market.. just look at all the charts... it is comical.. everyone is stuck at home sucked inside a bubble... doing nothing but investing.... it is like a big pressure cooker... lift the lid i.e. covid restrictions and the market will plummet!!! 

this could all be wrong and it will continue to rise but how?? what will make it rise..?? the economic recovery?? 

So you dont think when restrictions are removed that the economy will pick up, that people will travel more, buy more cars, take more flights, eat out more, find jobs more easily available?

How have your "feelings" worked in the past regards stock market movements? Did you "feel" a year ago it would rise because people would decide to spend their spare time gambling on the stock market?

But if your feelings work so well, you should buy into some shorting hedge funds and clean up that way.

Although, occurs to me that someone who is a masters student capable should be well aware that investing for 4 months when you want to buy a property with it (plus in general property in rising fast) is illogical.

Which makes me wonder if your masters is on a psychology study about delusions of capability in investing or similar, or bubble behaviour among investors, or similar, and you are trawling here for comments looking for input to your paper? That seems more logical to me than you really think its worthwhile gambling your property on random fluctuations in the markets over such a short time scale. Are you busted?