Hello everyone! I am new to investing and am mulling over a question I was hoping someone could help answer. I was previously investing in my 403B up to employer match and recently decided to open a Roth IRA as well. I put a lump sum in to max out my Roth IRA for this next coming year. I know it’s difficult to time the market and that’s not really the best investment strategy…but did I pick a bad time to put my lump sum into my investment? I wanted to start investing more as early as possible, and I realize there are going to be ups and downs in the market so it’s important to just keep steady with your investments for long term goals. My question is: given it was my initial lump sum investment, was it a bad decision to put the money in now when the value is going down right off the bat - should I have waited until the market was in a better place?
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Hi Morgann,
It’s great that you wanted to invest as early as possible! It’s impossible to predict when it is a good time to invest, so you did not do anything wrong for already maxing out your Roth IRA.
Yes, of course, it would have been better to invest now when the market is down, but no one can time the market. It totally could have gone up instead and you would have been happy to have invested earlier.
So don’t worry about it, in the long run the market will go up and up. Keep investing early and often, stick around for the ride, and you will be fine 
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Hopefully this will help alleviate concerns as well!
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