Buy Now or Wait for Market To Bottom

Lets answer this with some takeaways I've learned from studying the 8 market crashes of the last 8 decades

This is the 9th…

The Statistics

1. We have a crash greater than 20% every decade on average. It's relatively normal.
2. The average crash decline is about 40% from high to low.
3. The median crash duration is 41 months (from the initial 20% decline until a full recovery is made).
4. The market bottom occurs at a median time of 7 months after the initial 20% decline.

In other words, on average, we crash and bottom in 7 months, and then take 34 to recover (41 total).

Granted, knowing this doesn't give you a magic ability to pick the bottom, but it certainly adds weight to the old adage:

"Stocks crash by the elevator and recover by the staircase."

So if you're a long-term bull, don't sleep on the crash - and don't wait too long for a full recovery to happen without first getting some meat in the game.

The majority of the decline tends to happen early in the historical crash cycles.