Before we get to it, I just wanted to let you know that I'm teaching my FREE Live Investing Class this Saturday morning. Save your seat here!

The stock market and the New York Stock Exchange have been around since the late 1700s. But the S&P 500, the largest major index that tracks the value of 500 largest companies, was introduced in 1957. And because the stock market is mostly a representation of how the largest public companies are operating, this give us 67 years of data to be able to predict our future investment returns.

So what analysts have found is that the best way to not lose money when investing in the stock market is by … *drum roll*…long term investing! Yes, buying and holding in diverse assets is actually the most effective strategy to not lose money in the stock market.

Here are the odds that you’d have a positive return depending on how long you invest in the total stock market or S&P 500: 

1 year: 74%

5 years: 87%

10 years: 95% 

15 years+ : 100%

This means that even in the years the market has been down, it has ALWAYS recovered in at least a 15-year time frame. This applies even in those years where if you had bought at the height of the market and then there was an immediate crash (think Sept 2008 - the great recession, February 2020 - the beginning of Covid, or even the recent 2025 market down turn). Because if you zoom out years or months into the future, all of those investments have recovered (and then some)!