> if you stick with it and don't sell, things will turn out pretty well

I think that thinking is at fault, at least in part, for the massive loss that's pending in terms of a deep market correction, because it's valuing based on growth and not on fundamentals.

If you can sell eggs for 10 cents each, you have a cap on the price of chickens. Now you can adjust this for future growth but you still have a limit in the fundamentals of getting a return on your money.

But when you invest ignoring that, you might do well for a very long time. As chickens go from $500 to $1,000 to $10,000, etc. more people see it and join in, pushing the price higher. In the end, it's a Ponzi scheme. You'll only do well if you get out before it comes crashing down.

Notwithstanding the Schiller P/E, it's kind of hard to figure out when things are overvalued, and the average person has not time to track things.

On 2018-12-24 the S&P 500 tanked, and a lot of people were freaking out:

* https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/12/buying-when-stocks-...

* https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/12/5-thoughts-on-the-m...

* https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2018/12/the-forgotten-bear-...

And then they went up, and then hit an all-time high a little while ago, and there seems to be a bit of a swoon now (2019-08).

For most people, the best thing to do is ignore the news, and put away a little each month automatically ("pay yourself first"). Dollar cost averaging is a thing that works well in most situations.