Looking to invest lump sum in stock market, but it now the worst time?

I just hate the idea of buying high. Granted, this is for a long term investment (20 years) but I would hate to buy in at the current highs and have to wait 15 years for any substantial gains.

What is the general view that a new investor looking to put new money into the stock market should do? Is now the worst time to invest in an index fund?

Thanks.

No one knows for sure if this is a good time to get in the market or not but for my money I would wait or dollar cost average. Dollar cost averaging means to put small amounts of money into the market over time. Myself I am waiting for a dip. We are at all time highs! Odds are very strong that the market will have a strong correction this year. I can say this because there are normally three every two years. We had one in late February early March, and there was strong correction in May to July of last year. November of 2005 was a nice buying opportunity. We shall have another one!

no one knows.... but over all the valuation numbers seem pretty fair...
take the money you plan on investing and divide it up into periods... like take 1/4 and do it tomorrow... then another 1/4 3 months from now... its called dollar cost averaging... and will average out the cost over the year....

also since you plan to be in for over 20 years... dont buy all and once and dont sweat it if it goes down... just stay diversified and continue to add to it as you can.

the market has way more room to grow and dont worry beacause we are not at a high.The stock market will continue to grow.

Ideally, everyone wants to buy low, sell high. It is difficult to time the market. In any case, u ought to invest in a more balanced & diversified portfolio, hence you can take some worry out of e way.

Index Funds are a quick & easy way of diversfication as it is made up of a basket of stocks in different sectors. It trades exactly like a stock and is very transparent. This should work for u.

http://www.soundinvesting.blogspot.com

Since you say you are a long term investor the most logical approach is to take your lump sum and put a percentage of it in the market each month instead of putting it in all at once right now. This way you are committing your funds to the market gradually over several cycles.

If we do get a significant correction then you will have funds still on the sideline ready to put into the market at a discount to today's prices.

I know you hate buying at a high. Would you be happier knowing that you missed buying at a low? What if three years from now, the market has doubled and you missed it and still have all your money in cash because you were waiting for it to go down from it's "high"? How would you feel then? The big money is made in big trends. Look at a historical chart. An uptrend is a high followed by a higher high followed by an even higher high. Many successful traders look at lists of new highs for trading ideas.

I have been trading shares for nearly 7 years and have found it is impossible to time the market Nobody knows what is around the corner fact september 11, London bombings etc which negatively affected stock markets globally. Sure it might seem that the market is at an all time high but it could get much higher or go the other way I think you should invest in direct shares via a stockbroker Find a broker that is willing to assist you to make substantial gains

Very tough to time the market. Markets could go up, or they could go down. But over a 20 year period, stocks go up more than they go down, at a rate of around 10% per year on average. Of course, one year, it may go down 10%, but another year, it may go up 20%.

But 20 years is a long time from now.

Look at the chart of SPY (Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) which represents the S&P 500, approximating the largest 500 US stocks) over a 20 year period:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=SPY&t=my...

Even though we had one of the worst bear markets/recessions in 2000-2002, if you bought the SPY ETF in 1993, you'd be up 4x! Not bad.

If you choose to have 100% of it in stocks (you can choose to allocate a percentage in bonds, so if you are more risk averse, you can have 80% in stocks, 20% in bonds), you can have a diversified portfolio of these ETFs (mutual funds which trade just like stocks):

1. SPY -- Represents the S&P 500, US Large capitalization
2. MDY -- Midcap 400, US Mid capitalization companies
3. IWM -- Represents the smaller capitalization companies
4. EFA -- International Developed Markets including Europe, Japan and Australia
5. VWO -- International Emerging Markets including Taiwan, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, India, China, Russia
6. ICF -- REITs ETF (Real Estate Investment Trust)
7. AGG -- Lehmann Aggregate Bond ETF, represents Bonds.

Be sure to reinvest your dividends.

You can research the ETFs at:
http://www.ishares.com
http://www.proshares.com
http://www.vanguard.com
http://www.powershares.com
http://www.sectorspdrs.com

You can invest mutual funds at:
http://www.morningstar.com