Suze Orman and Keith Fitz-Gerald Reveal Why Timing the Market is a Fool’s Game — and What You Should Do Instead
Written by
Laura Bogart
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Kristen Mae
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Sometimes, even the experts need backup. When Suze Orman, famed financial advisor, author, and podcaster, wanted to talk about what she perceived to be the fool’s game of trying to time the market, she enlisted a fellow expert. Keith Fitz-Gerald, a renowned private investor, analyst, and market researcher, joined Orman on an episode of her podcast to talk about when people should start investing.
Their answer? Anytime. Orman and Fitz-Gerald want to dispel the myth that your success in investing hinges on the exact day and time you put your money into the market. Instead, they advocate for time-tested, commonsense approaches.
It’s About Consistency, Not Timing
Orman kicked off their conversation by asking Fitz-Gerald whether success depends on the specific day you invest and how the stock is performing at the moment. He said the answer was quite simple: no.
Smart investors know that consistency is key. Fitz-Gerald emphasized that investors should not fear the market, but instead make a plan to invest regularly.
“If you’re consistent, you’re getting around market timing risk,” he said. “You’re harnessing volatility that others fear, so it doesn’t matter whether you pick your birthday, whether you do it on Christmas, whether you pick another holiday, whether you do it even every Monday morning, as long as you do it.”
Don’t Sweat the Details
In addition to obsessing over the exact timing of their investments, people often get caught up in minute details, from whether it’s better to invest weekly or biweekly to choosing a specific time of day.
Fitz-Gerald concedes that early in his career, the idea of gaining an advantage by investing at a particular time wasn’t so far-fetched. He clarified that this had nothing to do with the market itself, and had more to do with traders being able to swoop in while others were distracted, by the donut truck in the morning or the hot dog truck in the afternoon.
But in the digital age, there’s no such thing as a lull in investing. Even the bustling New York Stock Exchange is now relatively quiet, with people preferring to execute trades via iPads.
“So this idea that there is a better time to buy or a worse time to buy really is moot now because computers have eliminated all of that,” he added.
Embrace the Fun Side of Investing
Fitz-Gerald wants listeners to remember that investing can be fun and that a broader approach is often more effective. The more granular you are in your thinking as an investor, the more anxious and distracted you can become.
“If you’re constantly off balance, if you’re focused on the minutiae, you’re gonna get squeezed every time,” he said. “The counterintuitive thing to do is to take a deep breath, take a step back and understand that investing, as much as they want you to think of as a game of precision, is a game of being close enough.”
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