<prompt> Human: I am 26 years old living with a very comfortable salary in a profession where I expect to continue to receive raises year to year. Given no emergencies, unexpected layoffs, etc. Is it incorrect thinking that a market downturn could help me. I plan to keep contributing, and increase contributions yearly. If im buying shares portions of shares with my 401k contributions, isnt it beneficial to buy them on a downturn since I know I wont need them for 40 years when they will have hopefully recovered? Or is this logic flawed and a having as long of a bull market as possible will always yield better results on long term investments?  <response>: You got the buy low part down. The sell high part is the trick. 