Imagine you're the unluckiest investor on earth. Every single time you had money to put into the stock market you waited and waited until the market hit an all-time high.

Imagine you're the unluckiest investor on earth. Every single time you had money to put into the stock market you waited and waited until the market hit an all-time high. Then and only then you invested. No dips. Just peak after peak after peak. You'd assume this person is doomed right? The poster child for buy high sell low. Now imagine another kind of investor. This one waits for a dip. She refuses to invest when markets feel expensive. She tells self shall buy after a correction. And finally, there's a third person, someone who keeps waiting, afraid, never investing a single cent. We already know how that story ends. Inflation quietly destroys their savings year after year. But what about the other two? Is buying at all time highs really worse than waiting patiently for a dip? Or could waiting actually do more damage over time? That's exactly what we're going to break down today. Using real research and a little bit of math that might finally set you free from the anxiety of asking when should I invest? Welcome to Martic Finance where we explain investing concepts in a simple way. But first of all a quick disclaimer. This is not financial advice. Now let's get into it. Picture two investors. Investor A is waiting for a dip Wendy. Wendy knows perfect timing is impossible but she has a rule. She never invests at all time highs. She waits for a 10% B is bad timing. B invests whenever she has money. She doesn't wait and to make things worse, she has terrible luck. Every single year, she invests at the absolute peak. Now intuitively, you'd expect Wendy to out perform Bridget by a mile. Wendy avoids expensive markets. Bridget buys at the worst possible times. But that's not what actually happens and this is where real research changes everything. Before we look at the numbers, let's be clear about one thing. Waiting for a dip sounds disciplined, but it's still a form of market timing. You're making a bet that prices will be lower in the future than they are today. And the market doesn't need to crash for that bet to fail. It only needs to keep going up longer than you expect. That's where most investors get stuck. Not because they were wrong about a crash, but because they underestimated how long bull markets can last. And now, with that in mind. Let's look at what the data actually says. Researchers at the Arch Bridge Family Office analyzed S&P 500 returns going back to 1990. They compared three strategies. First, waiting for a 10% pullback from all-time highs before investing. Second, investing immediately whenever the market hits a new all-time high. Third, investing on random days. Historically, investing at all-time highs produced higher average returns than waiting for a dip.