What If You Buy Stocks Too Early During a Market Crash?
I know of a professional trader who foresaw the Great Recession, went to cash in the summer of 2008 before things got crazy and came up with a wonderful plan to put his money back to work at the lows.
He planned on putting his cash into a simple S&P 500 index fund in 25% chunks when the S&P hit 650, 600, 550, and finally 500. It was a generational buying opportunity and I was jealous he had such a wonderful plan of attack.
The only problem with this plan is the S&P never got to those levels, even though plenty of people were predicting it at the time.
The S&P hit an intraday low of 666, he put his cash to work and ended up never getting back in. He assumed the initial bounce was of the dead cat variety and a double-dip recession would give him another opportunity to buy but stocks never looked back.
I’m not sure many investors sitting in cash or bonds at the moment are worried about being too late. Those with dry powder left are far more concerned with being too early, as most assume things will only get worse.