My Stock Forum

If the stock market crashes, should i buy shares while they are cheap?

Im a real beginner in investing, but would it be advisable to buy shares if the US stock market has crashed, as then it will be a great buying opportunity?

Public Comments

1. buy low sell hi, but you may never know how low they will go until they are up again so, be careful! I think instead of stocks you should invest your money in some mutual fund, and, while you are collecting from that, learn about the stock market until you are confident in your decision making because you can really lose your entire investment if you are not careful. It's not likely but in this era the markets are really unpredictable. If you would have invested in some mortgage companies right now you might be broke!
2. it would be a great opportunity, but you need to buy wisely
3. it's not that easy, first you need to find a company that is likely to recover. Because many do not. I have been investing for 3 years already and read books and stuff, and I have learned that is not that easy to pick a company. Even Jim Cramer from bad money makes mistakes at picking companies.
4. If the stock market crashes, I would rather buy non perishable food and store water, and find a good place in the mountains, so I could survive, cause I don't want to experience great depression again
5. Yes, but... Has the market crashed, getting ready to crash, or about to rebound. Nobody knows! If you are investing for the long term, pick good stocks and go for it. Otherwise wait.
6. I would deff buy shares why they are low, the saying is buy low sale high, and just for your information, check out prnw stocks, thats what i invested in!!!!
7. The trick is to buy at the bottom of the market. The difficult bit is knowing when the market has bottomed out. Buy too early and you'll lose out before the market recovers. Buy too late and you've missed the opportunity.
8. Only if you think the shares will increase in price in a useful period of time.
9. i think it is a good time to start buying. just stay away from mortgage,banks,home-builders,anything to do with real estate right now until things sort themselves out.
10. Everything has risks. Stocks and shares go up and down and should be considered a long term RISK. Remember the only surefire way to make money is to earn it.
11. As long as the prognosis for the economy looks good, yes, you should buy. If you bought right after the last crash -- October, 1987 -- you would have made out like a bandit, because there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the economy and the market rapidly recovered. However, if you bought right after the 1929 crash, as the country was headed into the Great Depression, you would have lost badly since the worst of the decline was to come over the following several years. You wouldn't have gotten back to even until the 1950s. I believe the economy is fundamentally OK right now, and I would probably buy after a crash, should one occur. However, I would not be expecting a crash now.
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13. In general, yes it is a good idea to purchase stocks when the market is down and stocks are cheap ... provided that you plan to hold them for 10 years or longer. The easiest way to take advantage of the stock market is to purchase low-cost, index mutual funds which hold most of the market's stocks for you. In this sense, you are very diversified and don't have to try to guess which stocks will perform the best over the long run. With index mutual funds, you capture the market's overall return. If you are new to this, you will need to obtain a basic education on investing first. Sorry, but there is no short-cut to making money in stocks. You will have to start where the rest of us have started: at the beginning. Attempting to bypass a basic understanding of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds will almost assuredly get you into trouble at some point down the road. You will prematurely panick and sell at the most inopportune time, or you will take on more risk than you are comfortable with. You will need to understand the concepts of modern portfolio theory and how to set up your profile to a risk level that is appropriate for your situation. You also need to understand the impact that costs have on your long-term returns. You will want to develop a goal-based approach to investing, as opposed to just randomly throwing money into stocks here and there. For beginners, I can recommend 4 good sources: 1) Book: Mutual Funds for Dummies, by Eric Tyson. The best all-around beginner's book. 2) Book: The Boglehead's Guide to Investing 3) My free downloadable book at http://www.invest-for-retirement.com 4) Free tutorials at http://www.investopedia.com
14. Absolutely! If you had put $1,000 in the market the day BEFORE the big crash at thend of 2002 (so you "lost" almost 20% of it the next day), but had left your money there, you'd be up over 60% now. Always keep a little cash to buy "blue chips" with each time there's a big dip. If people were watching Disney movies, drinking Coke and smoking Marlboros the day BEFORE a crash, you can be certain they will be afterwards, too! Why pass up the opportunity to buy these companies at a discount?
15. you bet ye, I have been waiting for a 20% correction for a long time now.
16. Yes. The one caveat to this is that you want to buy in right after the stock market has crashed, rather than while the market is crashing--there's an old well known stock market axiom 'don't try to catch a falling knife.' If you're thinking of buying in right now I'd recommend that you wait a few days and see how the sub prime loan business shakes out. Stocks could go significantly lower.
17. If you believe the stock market will eventually recover then yes, buying shares after a drop can make sense. However, trying to judge the bottom of the market is notoriously difficult. While you might make a quick buck there’s also the risk that markets fall further, so be prepared to stomach loses in the shorter term. Ideally you should plan to hold for at least 5-10 years, giving plenty of time to ride shorter term turbulence and ultimately profit. [all information provided was correct at the time of answering]
18. Only after the crash is over, the pieces have stopped falling, the fires are out, the hubcaps have spun to a stop and the paramedics have carted away the bodies. THEN place your orders to execute at about 15-20% above the bottom as compared to the pre-crash prices.