Near-record S&P 500 levels should not deter long-term investors, Motley Fool argues, urging them to keep buying and holding broad index ETFs rather than trying to time the market.
A 40% S&P 500 decline from 2000 to 2002—and nearly 50% peak to trough—eventually became a small blip on the index’s longer upward trend, the report says.
SPDR S&P 500 ETF and Vanguard S&P 500 ETF are highlighted as simple buy-and-hold vehicles, with expense ratios of 0.09% and 0.03%, respectively.
The main risk is not high valuations alone but panic selling during bear markets, which the report says historically have always been followed by bull markets.
The broader takeaway is that a disciplined long-term plan—whether through index ETFs or diversified stocks—matters more than reacting to short-term market swings.
With the S&P 500 dangerously concentrated in tech giants, will the historical promise of a guaranteed bear market recovery finally break?
Could the popular buy-and-hold index strategy actually become a dangerous trap if the next major market crash takes decades to recover?
If bear markets historically average only thirteen months, what hidden psychological traps cause so many investors to lose everything during downturns?