It looks like all people are running away from the stock market these days. This morning on the news, I heard a ‘financial expert’ claim that investors had ‘given up’ on stocks, that they were getting out, selling up, and that this was in fact pushing the stock market down even further.

You might ask why would anyone recommend buying stocks at times like these? As a matter of fact, I believe that now is one of the best times ever to invest in stocks. Here’s why.

In his now classic book Stocks for the Long Run, Jeremy Siegel explains that stock market returns are extremely stable over a longer period of time and outperform every other asset class in the long run. In spite of huge social, political and economic upheavals over the last two centuries, stock market returns have proven to be very predictable in the long run. Through two world wars and multiple other conflicts, through the great depression, Black Monday, terrorist attacks and all kinds of natural disasters, the long term payback provided by owning stock has been predictable and consistent.

It may look like the end of the world to you, but it is not true. Eventually, the economy will recover, the market will recover and stocks will follow their predictable path.