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Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

If markets fall another 20-30%, it won’t have obviously been a good time to buy today. These aren’t normal times.

In the depression, stocks fell for about three years. Also, your dollar argument makes no sense: the stocks are valued in dollars, and are falling faster than the dollar.

It’s great to buy at the bottom, but who knows if that’s it.

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The point is that even in the worst-case-scenario, if you bought stock the hour before the great depression, you'd still be way up when you retire in 30 years later.

You're probably right, but keep in mind that for the past 100 years we have seen a systematic trend in lower interest rates that brought massive debt expansion and financialization of the economy. We are at the 0% interest rate at the moment so monetary expansion will be more difficult, unless the FED does direct equity purchases like the ECB did. So it's worth considering other outcomes as well, like stagflation, MMT or massive devaluation of our currencies. Some of these outcomes are very bullish for equities, but it's hard to say where things are headed at the moment.

The dow went from 400 to 50 in the depression. If you bought at the bottom you’d have 800% more than if you’d bought at the top!

The fact that stocks go up long run isn’t an argument for pouring money into a plunging market. This might be the bottom, it might not.

As you said It’s great to buy at the bottom, but who knows if that’s it., so I’m going to continue investing whatever I can each fortnight.

I’d rather risk paying more now before a big crash and continuing to invest through the big crash than risk missing this opportunity and the market going back to a bull one in a few weeks.

That’s fine. The parent comment was recommending people increase their buying right now however. My point was this isn’t necessarily a special opportunity just because it’s off a peak.

but i'm not retiring in 30 years?

The market will recover. Give it a decade or two. If you want to retire today you're having the worst luck ever.

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