“Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections or trying to anticipate corrections than has been lost in corrections themselves.”
A few weeks ago, at the peak of demonitization gloom, I asked a friend if he was investing in equities. He told me that he would invest only when NIFTY is at 7500. Now that is a very common refrain when it comes of not investing. If we don’t want to do something we always tend to find reasons not to do that thing. When market is going up, people put off investing because they feel market has run ahead of fundamentals and will correct sooner than later. When market is falling, they feel market will fall more.
They main point is no one knows where the fall or rally will stop in near term. The whole idea of investing in equity market is the belief that in a country like India economy will continue to grow in coming decades. If the markets perform in line with economy, they should be at higher level over the medium to long-term. One has to understand that attempt to time the market is futile as it is impossible to do all the time. What can be done though is to continue investing in a systematic manner. This way you avoid investing only at the top and get a chance to invest at the bottom or near the bottom. So, as long as you remain invested for medium to long-term, you will most likely make good money.