<prompt> Human: I know absolutely nothing about investing, but I pulled my money out just because I was worried about Trumps affect on things. Now that I have time to look into things a bit, I wanted to reinvest in a handful of socially responsible mutual funds. However the market has been going up for something like 8 years and I hear the housing market is about to collapse. Is it a bad time to reinvest? Should I let my money sit and do nothing or risk it?  <response>: I tried to time the market last year and lost out on 21.831 gains. How can I try to time the market this year?Market may go up. Market may go down. Over the long run you will lose more waiting for it to go down first than if you invested and there was an immediate crash assuming you keep your money in through the crash and dont withdraw it immediately afterwards2.1 SP 500 returns for 2017.2 Someone who bought into the SP 500 for 100 112008, just a few months before the crash, would have 63 on 12312008. They would not actually get back to 100 until 2012. However as of 812018 they would have 252. Would it have been better to have bought after the crash? Yes. Do you know when the crash will happen? No. 