Why there’s never a perfect time to invest
If you’re waiting for that magical perfect moment to invest in the stock market, you could spend a lifetime on the sidelines. Waiting for just the right time to jump in means you’re likely going to miss the market’s inevitable rise.
Vanguard asked T Brand to help transform the way tentative investors perceive investment decisions. To shift their outlook, we created an interactive narrative using historic market data. The experience shows how, even if you had invested at famously bad moments in history, you’re still likely to have come out ahead over the long run.
The financial crisis of 2008-09. The week the dot-com bubble burst. Black Monday! What do these events have in common? They’re all historic moments that investors may look back on with dread, and even regard as reasons to not invest. For T Brand, they offer great lessons in long term learning.
Using a simple one-input interactive and historic market charts that auto-populated, T Brand taught investors how to overcome their anxieties by asking them to invest (hypothetically) at exactly the wrong time — during some of the darkest days on Wall Street. Then we show how, over the long term, divesting would have been a costly mistake. What looks dire in the moment can turn around — and even generate great returns — when you take the long view.