The S&P 500 closed above 7,000 for the first time in history on April 15, and it’s kept climbing from there. If you have cash on the sidelines, you’re probably asking the same question investors ask every time markets hit new records: Is it a bad time to buy?
The historical data says the opposite.
What Happens When You Invest at All-Time Highs
Peter Mallouk, CEO of Creative Planning, recently shared a chart from Charlie Bilello that cuts through the fear. It measures S&P 500 total returns from September 1989 through April 2026, comparing returns after new all-time highs to returns on every other day.
Here’s what investors who bought at all-time highs got, on average:
1 year later: 13.6% return (vs. 11.9% on other days)
3 years later: 46% return (vs. 39% on other days)
5 years later: 82% return (vs. 74% on other days)
Money invested at record highs didn’t just keep pace with money invested on normal days. It outperformed.
Why This Happens
New all-time highs feel like a warning sign. The logic seems obvious: If the market is at a peak, the next move must be down.
The historical record tells a different story. Markets hit new highs because earnings are growing, the economy is expanding, or both. Those conditions tend to persist. One new high is usually followed by more new highs, not a crash.
The S&P 500 has already hit dozens of new records in 2026, stacking on top of the 37 all-time highs it posted in 2025. Each of those highs, at the moment it happened, felt like “the top” to some investors. None of them were.
The Real Risk Is Sitting in Cash
Every year, the market sets new records, and a new group of investors decides to wait for a pullback before putting money to work. Some of them wait for years.
While they wait, two things work against them. Markets continue climbing, making the “correction” they’re waiting for feel further and further away. And even when a correction does come, it often doesn’t drop back to the levels that originally scared them.
Cash sitting in a checking account loses purchasing power to inflation every year. A savings account earning 4% roughly keeps up with inflation, but doesn’t build real wealth. The stocks you were afraid to buy have historically returned close to 10% per year over long periods.
Money expert Clark Howard has long said that time in the market beats timing the market. The Bilello data is one more piece of evidence that waiting for the “right” moment tends to cost investors more than it saves them.
What To Do if You Have Money To Invest
If you have a lump sum you’ve been holding back, you have two reasonable choices.
Invest it all at once. Research from Vanguard found that lump sum investing beats dollar-cost averaging about two-thirds of the time, because markets trend up over long periods and earlier money has more time to compound.
Dollar-cost average over several months. If putting it all in today would keep you up at night, split it into equal pieces and invest on a schedule. You’ll give up some expected return for peace of mind, and you’ll still be in the market.
The worst option is the one many people default to: waiting for a clearer signal that never comes.
Final Thoughts
New all-time highs aren’t a reason to stay out of the market. The data since 1989 shows they’ve actually been above-average entry points for long-term investors.
If your timeline is five years or longer, the question isn’t whether the market will pull back at some point. It will. The question is whether you’ll be invested long enough to participate in the recovery. Investors who stay in the market through the full cycle have consistently outperformed those who attempt to wait for the perfect moment.
For most people, the perfect moment to invest is when you have the money.
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