“Is now the right time to invest?”
This is one of the most common questions we get — particularly when someone is just getting started with us, or when they have a meaningful amount of cash sitting there ready to be invested.
And it’s a very reasonable question.
For many people, investing is closely tied to the idea of “buy low, sell high”. The entry point feels important. There’s a natural instinct to wait for a better opportunity — especially when markets feel high or uncertain.
At the same time, there is always something happening in the background. Interest rates, geopolitics, recession concerns, or headlines about markets hitting record highs. It’s not hard to find a reason to pause.
So people ask: should I invest now, or wait?
The honest answer is: it depends. But probably not in the way most people expect.
It’s less about the market — more about you
When people ask this question, they are often focused on what markets might do next — whether now is too high, or whether a better entry point might come.
But the more important part of the question is actually not the market. It’s you.
- What is the money for?
- When will you realistically need to access it?
- How comfortable are you with short-term ups and downs?
- What else is happening in your broader financial position?
These are the factors that actually determine whether investing now makes sense.
For example, consider two different situations.
- One person might be 5–10 years away from retirement, having just sold an investment property and now sitting on a large lump sum, with limited ability to add more over time.
- Another couple might be in their 40s, with a smaller initial amount — say $200,000 — but the ability to consistently invest $20,000–$50,000 each year going forward.
They are looking at the same market. But the right approach — and even the timing decision — may be quite different.
We do build investment strategies based on long-term views of markets and the economy. But the decision of when to invest is not driven by short-term predictions — it’s driven by how the investment fits within your personal situation.
The market is the same for everyone. The decision isn’t.
Time in the market is more important than timing the market
A big reason this question comes up so often is because of what people see and hear about the market.
Broadly, most headlines tend to fall into two categories.
- The first is when markets are doing well. You’ll see headlines about record highs, strong performance, or concerns that markets are “overvalued”. Even if those observations are not wrong, they often create the impression that it might be better to wait.
The challenge is that markets can stay elevated for a long time. If you wait for markets to no longer feel “high”, you could end up waiting for years — and miss a significant portion of the growth along the way.
- The second type of headline is when markets fall. These tend to focus on how far markets have dropped, often amplifying uncertainty and fear. In those moments, it may feel like the safer decision is to wait until things stabilise.
But the reality is, you never know where the bottom is. By the time it feels “safe” again, markets have often already recovered.
So whether markets are going up or down, there is always a reason not to invest.
And that’s exactly the problem with trying to time it.
What tends to matter more is simply being invested, and staying invested, over time.
A practical way to think about it
From time to time, clients will reference something they’ve read or heard — a podcast, a YouTube video, or commentary from well-known investors — suggesting that now might be a time to hold more cash and wait.
A common example is Warren Buffett holding higher levels of cash.
It’s important to recognise that this comes from a very different investment approach.
Value investors who are selecting individual companies often need to be patient. Holding cash allows them to wait for specific opportunities where a particular business becomes available at a compelling price.
Our approach is different. We build diversified portfolios designed to capture broad market returns over time, rather than waiting for a single opportunity.
Because of that, the idea of sitting in cash waiting for the “perfect moment” is less relevant.
That said, this doesn’t mean everything has to be invested all at once.
In practice, there are ways to approach this more gradually. For larger amounts, we may phase investments over a number of months. And for many clients who are investing from ongoing savings, the act of investing regularly already achieves this naturally over time.
It’s not about finding the perfect entry point — it’s about having a structured way to get invested.
So… is now a good time?
In most cases, the answer is more likely to be yes than no — provided the foundations are in place.
If the money is genuinely long-term, your cash flow and reserves are appropriately structured, and the strategy aligns with your goals, then delaying purely based on market conditions is usually not necessary.
At its core, investing is less about finding the perfect moment, and more about having a clear plan and sticking to it.
Short-term uncertainty will always exist. There will always be reasons to wait.
But the bigger risk is often not investing at all.
So the more important question is not whether now is the perfect time to invest.
It is whether you are ready — structurally and financially — to invest for the long term.
If the answer to that is yes, then in most cases, the right decision is simply to start.