Should you invest in the stock market or should you avoid it at all costs? I truly believe there is no single right or wrong answer at this point. The stock market is more unsettled than most of us have ever seen it in our lifetime, and the volatility and uncertainty don’t look to be going away anytime soon. Does that mean no one should invest in the stock market? No, not necessarily.

Let’s take a look at a couple of different examples. First let’s say you are a 61 year old who has just retired from the manufacturing industry and you are sitting at home looking at some of the manufacturing stocks and thinking they can’t possibly get any cheaper. You are thinking it might be a good idea to invest a lot of your retirement money in some of these stocks. I strongly suggest that you not make this move. Those who are at or near retirement should be investing in safer assets, and while some of these stocks appear dirt cheap, they have appeared that way to people for many months and they just keep getting cheaper. Be careful and invest very carefully if you are in this type of situation!

On the other hand if you are a 24 year old who has just graduated and gotten a decent job and want to put a little bit of money to work in the market that is done so much, I can’t argue with scaling into the stock market at these levels. You have time on your side and you don’t have to worry about the short term volatility that the stock market will have. Over the long run the stock market is likely to perform quite nicely if you are able to stomach the volatility in the interim.

There is no single answer as to whether stocks are cheap enough now to invest in them. Take a good hard look at your personal situation now before investing in this market. Stocks appear cheap now, but they can and very likely may get quite a bit cheaper yet. Tread carefully in this volatile market!