To start investing or wait for better market outlook?

As we've seen over the past couple of weeks, markets have been rising and falling. The uncertainty over broader developments such as the US-China trade war has fuelled the recent volatility, but it is important to note that no one can predict what is going to happen next.

That's why we say that investing is about time in the market, not timing the market. Nobody can predict if the market will go up or down tomorrow, but we do know that historically speaking, the market has trended upwards over the long term. If you refer to the graph below, you are almost certain to be a winner over a longer time horizon like 20 years.

More importantly, waiting to invest means your investment has lesser time to enjoy the benefits of compounding. In our Retire With Confidence e-book, we have a case study that shows how a delay in investing led to significantly different investment gains.

Instead of trying to guess the ideal time to start investing, we believe the smarter way would be to start investing regularly in a low-cost, diversified portfolio. Diversification is a good way to protect against volatility. At Syfe, you'd find that all our portfolios are diversified across assets, sectors and geographies, at a fraction of the cost of usual methods.

If you'd like to learn more about how Syfe can help you manage your investment risks during periods of uncertainty, please join us for our upcoming "Get to know Syfe" workshop. Hope to see you there!

2 important things that I learn over the years in investing and also from my investing failures.

1) Time in the market is more important than timing the market

2) Take care of your downside risk and let the upside take care of itself.
So it's more important to start investing and while you are invested make sure that your risk levels are well managed.