A host of worries -- inflation and interest rates, global conflicts and a looming recession, as well as the roller coaster ride that's inherent in stock investing -- can make it easy to question the safety of trusting much of your nest egg in the public markets.

So, when asking yourself if it's safe to invest today, perhaps the better question is to ask instead: Is it safe not to? We're talking here about opportunity cost. In today's parlance, that might be put as FOMO -- fear of missing out -- and it's a legitimate concern. Opportunity cost at its simplest means what you're costing yourself by choosing one option over another. In the case of smart investing over simply saving, it can be considerable.

Check out this chart for a graphic example. It compares the total return -- comprised of share price movement and reinvesting all dividends -- for three key benchmarks. 

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Source Fool.com