What Are You Waiting For?

Is This the Right Time to Start Investing?

It is a question I hear time and time again.

But when people ask, “Is now the right time to start investing?”, what they are often really asking is something slightly different:

“Is the market going to go up or down over the next 12 months?”

The answer to the first question is simple: yes. Now is a good time to invest.

In fact, there is no better time to start investing than today. Why? Because successful investing is not about picking the perfect moment. It is about giving your investments as much time as possible to grow.

Trying to pick the perfect time is impossible. Every expert has a prediction, but predictions are rarely correct, as no one I have ever met can see the future, myself included. I can guarantee that if I could, I would be writing this article from my Maritimo M60 superyacht somewhere in the warm Whitsundays, after winning 16 Powerball's in a row, not huddled beside an old farm fireplace trying to keep warm.

Life's uncertainty is exactly what makes investing feel so nerve-racking.

But investing is no different from many of the big decisions we face in life. We often wait for the perfect moment to do something, but that moment rarely exists. There is never a perfect time to change jobs, have a child, start a business, or finally get back to the gym. There will always be uncertainty, discomfort, and some form of fear holding you back.

The danger is that waiting for the perfect time often means waiting too long. Or worse, never starting at all.

Investing works because of time. The longer your money is invested, the more opportunity it has to grow. As the old saying goes, “It is not about timing the market, it is about time in the market.”

Of course, that does not make investing feel any less uncomfortable when markets are volatile. So let me give you an example of truly terrible timing.

Meet Barry.

Unfortunately, Barry seems to have spent his childhood breaking mirrors, walking under ladders, and collecting every bit of bad luck available to him.

Barry decides he needs to start investing for the future. On 10 October 2007, he invests $25,000 into an international index ETF and another $25,000 into an Australian index ETF.

His timing could hardly have been worse.

Soon after his first investment, the Global Financial Crisis tore through markets, leading to one of the biggest share market crashes in history.

Despite his bad luck, Barry held his investments. He did not sell. He continued to reinvest all his dividends, using those payments to buy more shares.

Eventually, after getting through the GFC, Barry built up enough courage to invest again.

On 31 December 2019, he invested the same amounts into the same two index ETFs: $25,000 into the international fund and $25,000 into the Australian fund.

Once again, Barry’s timing was awful.

Just weeks later, the world was thrown into chaos by COVID-19. Markets tumbled, fear took over, and investors around the world panicked.

But Barry held his nerve. He stuck to the same strategy. He did not sell. He kept reinvesting his dividends.

Over the last 18 years, Barry invested at two of the worst possible moments in recent market history. Yet despite this, as of today, Barry’s investment would be worth $341,659 from his original $100,000.

Not a bad result for someone who could hardly have picked worse times to invest, not only once, but twice.

Now if those figures don’t impress you, imagine Barry invested $200 every week into the same investments from 10 October 2007 to 01 June 2026, living through the exact same crashes and reinvesting his dividends. He would have invested a grand total of $194,600 from weekly contributions and his investment today would be worth $671,873.

The lesson is not that markets always go up in a straight line. They don't. There will always be crashes, corrections, recessions, headlines, uncertainty, and reasons to wait.

The lesson is that time matters more than timing.

If you are waiting for the perfect moment to invest, you may be waiting forever. But if you start, stay disciplined, and give your investments time to grow, you give yourself the best chance of building wealth over the long term.

So, is this the right time to start investing?

For most people, the better question is: what are you waiting for?