# Does time in the market beat timing the market? Source: https://www.astor.app/blog/time-in-market-beats-timing-the-market Published: 2026-03-25 Updated: 2026-10-21 By: Astor team, Astor (Gaus, Inc. DBA Astor) Historically, yes. For long-term goals, staying invested through the ups and downs has worked out better than trying to sell before drops and buy back before recoveries, mostly because the market's best days have tended to arrive right next to its worst ones, and almost nobody catches them on purpose. Astor is a personal investing agent that watches what you own and texts you only when something actually touches it, which makes it easier to sit still through the noise while you make every decision. None of this is a promise. It's what the record shows over specific periods, and the future can look different. But the reason behind it is mostly about how people react to scary markets. > **In one minute** > - "Time in the market beats timing the market" means staying invested through good and bad stretches instead of trying to sell before drops and buy back before rebounds. > - In J.P. Morgan Asset Management's 2026 Guide to Retirement, $10,000 in the S&P 500 from January 2, 2006 to December 31, 2025 grew to $80,619 if fully invested and $35,866 if it missed the 10 best days. These are hypothetical index calculations, not results anyone earned, and they don't predict the future. > - Six of those 10 best days came within two weeks of the 10 worst days, so selling after a bad day can mean missing the rebound. > - Morningstar estimates the average dollar in US mutual funds and ETFs earned about 1.2 percentage points a year less than the funds themselves over the 10 years ended 2025, a gap explained by when and how much investors bought and sold. > - Staying invested still means living through losses. It works best with a mix that fits your timeline and a plan for the urge to react. ## What does "time in the market beats timing the market" mean? Market timing is moving money in and out of investments based on a guess about what prices will do next. You sell because you think a drop is coming, and you plan to buy back once things look better. Time in the market is the opposite habit. You pick a mix of investments you can live with, keep adding money on a schedule, and leave it alone through good and bad stretches. The trouble with timing is that you have to be right twice. Getting out before a fall only helps if you also get back in before the recovery, and the second call is the harder one. Waiting for things to feel calm seems sensible, but by the time they do, prices have often already moved and you're buying back higher than you sold. ## What happens if you miss the best days in the market? J.P. Morgan Asset Management publishes the clearest version of this every year in its Guide to Retirement. In the 2026 edition, it looked at a $10,000 investment in the S&P 500 Total Return Index from January 2, 2006 to December 31, 2025. Fully invested, it grew to $80,619. If it had missed just the 10 best days in those 20 years, it would have ended at $35,866, less than half as much. The more best days it missed, the worse it got. J.P. Morgan describes these as hypothetical calculations on an index, gross of fees, with dividends reinvested. Nobody can invest directly in an index, real accounts pay costs, and a different window would give different numbers. Past performance doesn't predict future results. The point isn't the exact figure. A small number of days did a large share of the work over two decades, and you only had them if you were invested. You don't miss them deliberately. You miss them by being out for a stretch, usually right after something frightening made you leave. Avoiding the worst days would have helped too, of course, but no one gets a calendar telling them which days those will be. ## Why are the best days so close to the worst ones? Big moves bunch together. When markets are under stress, prices swing hard in both directions, often within days of each other. J.P. Morgan's chart shows that six of the 10 best days in its 20-year window came within two weeks of the 10 worst days. It also notes that the second-worst day of 2020, March 12, was immediately followed by the second-best day of that year. So the moment you most want to get out is often right before a sharp rebound. If you sell into the fall and wait for clarity, the rebound can happen without you. ## Why do real investors fall behind their own funds? Morningstar measures this in an annual study called Mind the Gap, which compares the return a fund reports with the return the average dollar invested in it actually earned, given when people put money in and took it out. In the 2026 edition, published in August 2026, Morningstar estimates that the average dollar invested in US mutual funds and ETFs earned about 1.2 percentage points a year less than the funds' own aggregate return over the 10 years ended December 31, 2025. That gap was equivalent to around 12% of the funds' total return, and Morningstar attributes it to the timing and size of investors' purchases and sales. Morningstar notes that some of the gap comes from good habits, like investing a bit of every paycheck, so it isn't proof that individual investors are foolish. Still, it found narrower gaps in simple, broad options like allocation funds, and its suggestions are plain. Hold off on ad-hoc trades made in response to recent events, put your contributions on a schedule, and hold fewer, more widely diversified funds. ## Is it ever reasonable to sell? Yes. Time in the market doesn't mean never selling. It means not selling because of a headline or a hunch about next month. The SEC's Investor.gov says the most common reason to change your mix is a change in your time horizon, since you'll usually want less in stocks as a goal gets closer. A change in your risk tolerance, your finances or the goal itself counts too. So does rebalancing, which means trimming what has grown past your target and adding to what has fallen behind. It's also worth being honest about what staying invested costs. Investor.gov notes that large company stocks as a group have lost money on average about one out of every three years, and says a portfolio heavily weighted in stocks would be inappropriate for a short-term goal. Time in the market is a strategy for money that can afford to wait. The useful test is where the decision comes from. Selling because your plan changed is a decision. Selling because the market fell and you're scared is a guess about timing. ## How do you stay invested when the news is scary? Most of the work happens before the scary day. 1. **Pick a mix you can hold in a bad year.** If a bad year for stocks would push you to sell, you probably own more stocks than you can stomach, and it's better to find that out now. Investor.gov says the right mix depends mostly on your time horizon and how much risk you can tolerate. 2. **Put your contributions on a schedule.** Investing the same amount at regular intervals, called dollar-cost averaging, means you stop having to decide when to invest. 3. **Decide your rebalancing rule in advance.** Investor.gov describes rebalancing on a calendar (every six or twelve months, for example) or when an asset class drifts past a percentage you picked ahead of time. Either one turns a nervous judgment call into a routine. 4. **Look less often.** Watching your balance all day mostly gives you more chances to react. In our view, a short daily check is plenty for a long-term investor. 5. **Ask one question before you act.** Does this news change anything about what I own or why I own it? Usually the honest answer is no. ## How Astor helps with the urge to react A lot of the pressure to time the market comes from headlines that have nothing to do with what you own. Astor is a personal investing agent on iPhone and in iMessage. It connects to the brokerage, retirement and crypto accounts you already have at most major US institutions through Plaid, learns what you own, and follows every position along with the earnings dates, filings and headlines that touch them. When nothing matters to your portfolio, it stays quiet. When something crosses a line you care about, it texts you right away with what happened, why it matters to you, and what you could do, with the reasoning and sources behind it. That changes what a bad news day looks like. Instead of reading every scary headline and wondering whether it applies to you, you hear about the ones that touch your holdings, with an explanation, and you decide whether anything needs doing. [At a glance](https://www.astor.app/blog/at-a-glance) adds a five-second daily check with two lines on what moved your money today and why, so a red number comes with a reason. Astor doesn't trade, rebalance or move money in your connected accounts, and it doesn't run a managed portfolio. You make every decision, and since the AI can be wrong, it shows its sources. Astor is free to start and available in the US only. You can [see how it works](https://www.astor.app/#how-it-works), or read [how to actually review your investment portfolio](https://www.astor.app/blog/how-to-actually-review-your-investment-portfolio). ## Frequently asked questions ### Does time in the market really beat timing the market? Historically, for long-term investors, staying invested has generally done better than moving in and out. In J.P. Morgan's 2026 Guide to Retirement, missing the 10 best S&P 500 days over the 20 years ended 2025 cut a hypothetical investment's ending value by more than half. That's history, not a guarantee. ### Should I stop investing during a downturn? Selling or pausing during a downturn risks missing the rebound, because the best days have often come soon after the worst ones. If you'll need the money soon, that's a reason to hold less in stocks, decided ahead of time rather than in the middle of a drop. ### What is dollar-cost averaging? It means investing the same amount at regular intervals, like every paycheck, regardless of what the market is doing. You end up buying more when prices are low and less when they're high. It doesn't prevent losses, but it removes the need to guess when to invest. ### Is time in the market guaranteed to work? No. Stocks can lose money, sometimes for years, and Investor.gov notes that large company stocks as a group have lost money on average about one out of every three years. Staying invested has worked well historically for money that could wait out the bad stretches, which is why it fits long-term goals better than short-term ones. ## Sources - [J.P. Morgan Asset Management: Guide to Retirement 2026, "Impact of being out of the market" (PDF, data as of December 31, 2025)](https://am.jpmorgan.com/content/dam/jpm-am-aem/global/en/insights/retirement-insights/guide-to-retirement-us.pdf), accessed Oct 21, 2026 - [Morningstar: Mind the Gap 2026 (August 6, 2026, PDF)](https://www.morningstar.com/content/cs-assets/v3/assets/blt9415ea4cc4157833/blt852a4301adc2f5db/6a7373d51f7b5ae2da78e1e8/US_Mind_the_Gap_2026.pdf), accessed Oct 21, 2026 - [Investor.gov (SEC): Beginners' Guide to Asset Allocation, Diversification, and Rebalancing](https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/general-resources/publications-research/info-sheets/beginners-guide-asset), accessed Oct 21, 2026 - [Investor.gov (SEC): Dollar Cost Averaging](https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/dollar-cost-averaging), accessed Oct 21, 2026 ## Important information Gaus, Inc. DBA Astor is an SEC-registered investment adviser (CRD #338424). Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. Astor provides non-discretionary advice: you make every investment decision. All investing involves risk, including the loss of principal, and past performance does not guarantee future results. Astor uses AI, which can make mistakes. This article is general information, not individualized investment, tax or legal advice. See our [disclosures](https://www.astor.app/legal). ## About comparisons Information about other companies comes from their public websites and filings as of October 2026 and may have changed since; check each provider for current details. Comparisons and rankings reflect Astor’s opinion. Other companies’ names and trademarks belong to their owners, and no affiliation or endorsement is implied.