That is, even if you invested at a market peak—the worst possible time to do so— and stayed invested in the market for a long enough period, you ultimately made money. “A typical market cycle is 7-10 years. So, you should have a timeframe of at least seven years if not 10 for equity investing," says Anup Bansal, chief business officer, Scripbox. He adds, “If you stay invested this long, you can get an inflation-beating return."
According to Munish Randev, founder & CEO, Cervin Family Office & Advisors, the timing of the investment does have an impact on short and medium-term returns of your equity portfolio but as you start looking at horizons of 10, 15 & 20 years, the divergence between the worst and the best rolling returns narrows considerably.
The conclusion that investors can probably then draw is to “focus on giving enough time to their investments to grow rather than on timing the market," as summed up by Bansal. However, he points out that while this may hold true for the broader market, if you invest in the stock of a company that goes bankrupt, or an MF scheme that has taken the wrong bets, then no amount of time will help you.
