We often hear people say, “I’ll invest when the market falls” or “Let me wait for the right time to enter.” But the truth is, trying to perfectly time the market is like trying to catch the exact moment it starts raining — nearly impossible.
As any experienced Certified Financial Planner will tell you, successful investing isn’t about predicting the market — it’s about having a solid Investment Planning strategy and sticking with it.
A study by the Schwab Center for Financial Research beautifully shows why it’s better to stay invested over time, rather than wait for the perfect moment.
They studied five types of investors, each investing ₹1,72,000 per year for 20 years.
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The Perfect Timer:
Waited and invested every year at the market’s lowest point. -
Conservative Regular Investor
Invested investing ₹1,72,000 on the first trading day of each year, without thinking twice. -
The Systematic Investor
Spread his ₹1,72,000 investment evenly every month (like an SIP). -
The Poor Timer
Often invested ₹1,72,000 at the market’s peak (highest point) each year. -
The Procrastinator
Kept waiting for the “right time” to invest, but never actually did. Instead, parked money in safe options like treasury bills (in Indian terms, this would be like FDs or savings accounts).
So, what happened after 20 years?
- The Perfect Timer ended up with around ₹1,30,19,626.
- Conservative Regular Investor, who didn’t try to time the market, ended up with ₹1,16,50,506— ₹13,69,120 less than the perfect timer!
- The Systematic Investor (SIP style) finished close behind with ₹1,15,97,616— only ₹52,890 less than the consistent lump sum investor.
- The Poor Timer, who had bad timing every year, still built a corpus of ₹1,04,20,706.
- And the Procrastinator, who waited endlessly and stayed in safe instruments, ended with only around ₹ 38,21,668.
Key Lesson
Even if you are bad at timing, simply being in the market can still help you create wealth. But if you wait too long hoping for the “perfect time,” you may miss out on growth completely.
While perfect timing sounds great in theory, it’s practically impossible to achieve. Instead of guessing when the market is at its lowest, it’s wiser to start early, stay invested, and stick to your plan.
As the saying goes:
“Time in the market is more important than timing the market.”
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– Shrees Haralkar, Associate FP.