Step 7: Stay invested

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STEP 7 OF 7

Stay invested

Staying invested through market ups and downs can help you stay on track to reach your investment goals.

Make investing a habit

New digital tools have made it easy to invest regularly. Once you've determined how much you want to invest, setting up repeating transfers to your investment account or periodic investments can help you stay on track.

Sign into your Chase account and adjust the toggle to set up repeating transfers to your investment account.

Get started with investing

Don't get spooked

While markets can have a bad day, month or even year, history suggests investors are less likely to experience losses over longer periods.

Despite the market suffering double-digit dips during 22 of the last 39 years calendar years (1980-2018), roughly 75% of the years ended with positive returns.

Don’t try to time the market

Timing the market perfectly is nearly impossible because the best and the worst days of the market tend to cluster together. So if you’re lucky enough to miss the bad days, you’ll also likely miss the best days.

Let’s take the 20-year period from 1999-2018 as an example. If you invested $10,000 in the U.S. stock market at the beginning of that period and stayed invested the entire time, you would have nearly tripled your money. But if you had missed the 60 best-performing days, you would’ve actually lost money:

View chart as text Opens Overlay

Keep your emotions on course

It’s completely normal to get emotional when markets move up and down, but before making any decisions, keep these guidelines in mind:

Remind yourself of the goal you’re trying to achieve.
Check in with your timeline. Ask yourself, when will I need this money? The further away your goal is, the more time you have to ride through the ups and downs.
Consider giving your investments a little bit of breathing room. While it’s good practice to keep an eye on your investments, try not to check them more than necessary.

When you reach your goal or your priorities change

After you buy an investment, you might find yourself asking, “When do I sell it?”

While there may be no perfect time to sell an investment, here are a couple of scenarios to consider when you're considering selling:

You’re approaching the end of the time horizon you set for your goal.
Your financial situation changes—for example, you want to switch jobs and boost your savings or put a down payment on a new home.

There’s always the risk that once you sell an investment it can continue to go up in value, and it’s natural to have "seller's remorse." It’s important to remind yourself why you sold it when you did and try to not dwell on the decision.

Good to know

Typically, if you hold an investment for one year or less, you’ll have to pay short-term capital gains tax on any growth. For investments that you hold for more than a year, you would need to pay long-term capital gains tax on any growth.

Actual tax rates depend on your income level, and in general, short-term capital gains are taxed at higher rates than long-term capital gains.

Work with a dedicated J.P. Morgan advisor to plan for your goals or explore investing online with You Invest℠ by J.P. Morgan.

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Step 7: Stay invested

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