Have $500 to Spare? Then Buy These 4 Top Stocks Now

If you're an investor, you've witnessed something truly unprecedented over the past five weeks. The benchmark S&P 500 has lost approximately 34% just since Feb. 19, 2020, with the stock market nosediving to its quickest bear market in history -- it took just 16 trading sessions to push from recent highs to a greater than 20% decline.

Furthermore, there's virtually no certainty as to when we'll have an upper hand on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). As testing has picked up, so have confirmed cases in the United States and around the globe. Stricter mitigation measures being put in place to "flatten the curve" and ensure our healthcare system doesn't become overwhelmed will come at a huge cost to the world's leading economy. In fact, one investment bank on Wall Street is calling for an almost unfathomable 24% decline in U.S. second-quarter gross domestic product.

Yet despite this overwhelmingly pessimistic forecast, there's solace in knowing that, over the long run, high-quality businesses tend to increase in value. Prior to COVID-19, there were 37 stock market corrections of at least 10% in the S&P 500 over a 70-year period. Each and every one of these downturns, no matter how long or steep, was eventually erased and put well into the rearview mirror by a bull-market rally. That, too, will eventually be the fate of the steepest sell-off in history.

Source Fool.com