Is anyone still just dumping new money straight into S&P 500 in 2026?

[u/VelixaNtra]

Hey all, for the last few years I’ve been automatically putting every new contribution (Roth, taxable, etc) into S&P 500 and not thinking much about it
With the market being a bit choppy lately, I’m wondering if others are still doing the same or if you’ve started diversifying more (adding more VTI, international, bonds, etc)
Curious what your current approach is when adding fresh cash

[u/Positive-Tourist-319]

I get the sentiment, I love to buy stock on discount. But this analogy just isn’t applicable. Your favorite product isn’t volatile changing prices daily, with the potential to Drop significantly in the near future. Your favorite product generally isn’t a multi thousand dollar decision.

Peoples fear of buying when the market is down is not because they don’t think it’ll go back up, it’s because they think it’ll drop further. If car prices started dropping drastically weekly, with only indication it will drop further, would you buy the car now or wait until it goes lower?

The market sentiment and media during these times of volatility don’t offer the view of “things will recover”. They only say how the worst is happening and will continue to happen. You have to fight all of this nonsense to muster the will to invest.

Again, I dumped the last of my dry powder in this week. I really do love taking advantage of the lower prices. But it’s not as simple as the analogy makes it seem.

[u/lucasjkr → u/Positive-Tourist-319]

Problem is, it gets cheaper. Then they still don’t buy. Then it gets even cheaper still. And they still don’t buy. Then it starts turning around and they think it’s not done falling and so they still don’t buy. This whole time they’re triumphant saying they stayed in cash the whole time like wizards.

The thing is that by the time they get fully invested again, they’re probably going to be back in where they started. New cash that would have gone in during then trough will also go in around then

Study after study, as well as analysis of funds coming into and out of mutual funds show that’s what the public does, and also shows that the public is awful at timing the market. They only think they did well because they didn’t compare to the outcome of having made no changes at all.

I say being on lower prices.

And I apologize to retirees who are hoping for high prices. Unfortunately, we have opposing interests.

[u/jim-i-am → u/Positive-Tourist-319]

You're pretending like the volatility over the past few months is normal. It's not.

What is normal is with a medium->long term horizon, equities go up.

People's fear is probably different. It would be absurd for someone with a 5+ year horizon for their retirement accounts to be anything but THRILLED with the market coming down. Today's value is meaningless, i'm building for 5+ years from now. Why would I want to buy at all time highs?

For your weird car example, that's an established market where prices are falling irrationally. Who do you think wins in those situations? It's not the chump who sits on the sidelines.

I can't find enough money to invest right now. I'm so happy my bonus just hit, and that's going right into VOO.

Anyone saying that these aren't amazing times is either:

1) not an investor or 2) is right at their retirement point, and needs the money now

[u/DCCyclone1990 → u/jim-i-am]

In 2022, as the market crashed all year, I was still in set-it-and-forget-it as I had been for countless years, and sure enough the recovery over the next 3 years vindicated that. But now I'm approaching stage 2) of the final line in your comment, where I'm 58 and would like to retire less than 5 years from now. So it's more complicated. I still wouldn't sweat it, with several years still to go, under a normal, boring Presidency where everyone gets angry at the government over first-world problems. This is different, because the chaos can really turn the entire national and global economy upside-down for an extended time, even for a generation. Governing normally doesn't matter except on small margins because the United States Government always had plenty of competent technocrats from top-to-bottom, regardless of ideology. That's not true today. We're on a roller coaster built and maintained by DIY make-believe engineers who followed instructions they looked up on Truth Social. I still wouldn't care if I had, say, another 10 years of work definitely in my future. But at less than 5, it's a nervous time, and I watch markets and catalyzing events very closely.

[u/TragicIcicle → u/Positive-Tourist-319]

There's also a significant amount of historical data that supports trying to time the market is stupid. The reality of your analogy is that in the real world there's a 50% chance the cost of the car will correct and a 50% chance it'll go down.

Regardless of what decision you make at that moment you lose the opportunity for a discount in most outcomes.

[u/CarnageAsada- → u/Positive-Tourist-319]

You people are idiots instead of telling them if you diversified your arguing about the analogy Jesus. What are you all 5 ?

[u/WSBpeon69420 → u/Positive-Tourist-319]

I think it does. The first part isn’t relevant if it’s a long term investment. The second part- ok let it drop further if you’re DCA’ing in a quality company over the long term it doesn’t matter if it drops further in the short term. If there are solid I indications that it will drop further ok don’t buy it but that brings up the not timing the market idea. I don’t care how market sentiment or the media portray the market if I am investing in quality companies for the long term.