Since I started investing the SP500 has reached a new "all-time high" 67 times according to the granularity of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closing_m ... _S%26P_500
That's an average of > 2x/year.
In reality it is more than that because new "all-time highs" are reached in between the selected milestones. And that (I believe) is only looking at the price index and does not include the effects of dividends (i.e., total return).
Essentially all of my buying has occurred at or near the "all-time highs". If you think about it, you should only invest in a stock index (or any collection of stocks for that matter) if you think there's a reasonable likelihood they will increase in value in the future. If that proves true, more often than not they will be trading at or near an "all-time high". I keep putting quotes around the term "all-time high" because it is often used as an alarmist term that sneakily implies a permanence (i.e., it will necessarily go down from here), rather than the probable truth that it is just the "high so far".
If you truly believe US stocks are headed down for the long term (a la Japan ~1989/90) you should probably avoid them and choose something else to invest in.
There's nothing wrong with making contrarian investments, sometimes they pay off pretty well. It's a guilty little hobby of mine
. But it can be a slow and painful process waiting for them to pay off while you watch the boring old SP 500 grind upward through new highs. Sometimes they never really do. I've put a little dab of money into oil stocks (via VGENX), mining stocks (VGPMX); and more into Total International ex-US (don't remember ticker), and Emerging Markets (don't remember ticker) over the last 3 years for that reason (contrarian speculation). The latter two are probably still relatively cheap. VGPMX was up almost 90% this year last I looked, so I don't know how much further it can go in the short term. VGENX was also up pretty good too since I bought it, and might have decent medium-term prospects still. The others have been a drag. Altogether those four funds comprise 30-35% of my portfolio tops (and the Total International and Emerging Markets are part of my core portfolio).
I agree with Dragline, don't do anything right now and take some time and figure out a plan for yourself and write it down. A little speculation on the margin is okay, but it should be an embellishment of a solid plan, not the plan itself. PortfolioCharts is very good for analyzing candidates, and the wiki over at bogleheads.org has a lot of good basic information about investing and personal finance in general.
Is there anything I'm missing? Should I just sit on this money I currently have until the market corrects itself i.e. when interest rates rise? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Feel free to be as candid as possible; I take all personal responsibility for the actions I choose to make, all you would be giving me is something to do more research on. I feel like that disclaimer is necessary since during my last post it seemed everyone who replied had their own disclaimer in each response