Long-term investing has consistently been shown to be a reliable strategy for building wealth over time. While it may be tempting to try and time the market by jumping in and out of investments in an attempt to maximize profits, this approach is often futile and can even be detrimental to your financial success. The S&P 500 index, which tracks the performance of 500 of the largest publicly traded companies in the United States, has historically returned an average of around 10% per year. Rather than trying to predict short-term market fluctuations, it is generally more effective to adopt a long-term perspective and focus on building a diverse portfolio of quality investments that align with your financial goals.

The market action in 2022 gave me an unpleasant reminder of this universal truth. Let me tell you all about this awkward lesson.

There's always another shoe about to drop. Or maybe it's an unexpected upswing across the board. You just never know what's next. It is genuinely impossible to predict the unpredictable, and my K-Mart crystal ball was defective out of the box.

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Source Fool.com