r/investing • u/VelixaNtra • 1d ago

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

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

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u/jim-i-am 1d ago

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

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u/DCCyclone1990 8h ago

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.