Been seeing a lot of people ask lately whether they should buy stocks right now. Fair question, especially with all the uncertainty floating around.

Here's what caught my attention though – investors are getting nervous. Around 37% are feeling pessimistic about the next six months, up from 29% back in early February. Meanwhile the S&P 500 has basically gone nowhere since the start of the year, up just 0.24%. So yeah, I get the hesitation.

But here's the thing history actually teaches us: there's never really a "bad" time to invest if you've got a long-term view.

Let me throw out an example that always stuck with me. Imagine you put money into an S&P 500 index fund back in December 2007. Terrible timing, right? The Great Recession was literally just starting. The market didn't hit new highs again until 2013 – that's six years of pain. Most people would've freaked out.

But if you'd just held on? Those 2007 investors ended up with total returns over 363% by now. Not bad for buying at what looked like the absolute worst moment.

Could you have made more by waiting until 2009 when everything was on sale? Sure. But here's the trap – trying to time the market is a losing game. Hold off too long and you miss the recovery. The safer move is just staying consistent, keep buying regardless of what the market's doing.

Now, the real skill isn't about timing the market. It's about what you're actually buying. Not every stock survives a downturn. Companies with weak fundamentals, bad leadership, or shaky finances tend to crash hard. But solid companies with real competitive advantages? They weather the storms and come out stronger.

So if you're thinking about whether you should buy stocks now, focus less on the market timing and more on the quality of what you're putting your money into. Build a portfolio of companies that can actually survive rough patches.

That's really the edge that matters long-term.