It is commonly believed that no one – neither ordinary people nor economic analysts – knows when the stock market will hit bottom. We can speculate about it, but the fact remains. And while any investor might find it tempting to wait for better times (or better prices), it’s also possible to find that such a wait is prolonged and the chance will be lost, The Street writes.

A downward or “bear” market doesn’t obey rules. A stock market correction causes overvalued stocks of companies that have underperformed to also pull down the stocks of other, stronger performing companies.

A long-term investor’s main task (or at least the best way to get rich) is not to “find” the bottom, but to separate companies that have a bright long-term future, and whose stock price is unlikely to matter today, from those companies whose stocks have fallen in value because they lack solid business fundamentals.

But doing so is not easy. To take companies such as; Netflix, a perennial market leader while having huge cost issues, and Zoom, a company that may stop growing as the world returns to a pre-pandemic state where video conferencing is no longer as necessary.

The best investing advice is the one that says: you should only invest in stocks you have a deep conviction in.

There are also a few tips for the long-term investor that work almost always.

1. The long-term investor sees a dip in the market as an opportunity to add to their portfolio.

2. The long-term investor buys stocks of companies that he or she intends to own for many years, and even, in fact, forever. The long-term investor usually has an investment thesis, that is, a reason why he wants to own the stock. This thesis should give him faith in that stock, even when the stock price drops. At the same time, the investor should check his holdings to make sure that the company has not made changes that will cause him to abandon this thesis. For example, the company has had a CEO change and the new leader has made significant changes to the company’s operations, or something huge has happened in the market that has caused him to change his view of the company’s prospects.

3. A long-term investor should realize that many companies, like Amazon – do not always manage to show perfect quarterly results: instead, their leaders make the best decisions for the company’s success over decades, not quarters. That’s why Amazon was willing to have losses for a few quarters when it invested in the infrastructure necessary for long-term success and put up with a decline in its stock price. That said, it’s hard to argue that Amazon (and many other market-leading companies) made the mistake of treating its business as a long-term venture rather than a quarterly press release exercise.

4. The long-term investor rushes to take advantage of a dip in the market, the onset of a bear market, and even a stock market crash when many companies stage a sell-off of their stock. But if there are companies in which the investor has a strong conviction, he can buy its shares in peace of mind, fully believing that he is making the right choice for his future, whatever the movement in the market.

5. Long-term investing involves investing for years ahead and sometimes as long as decades, and a drop in the stock price due to market or macroeconomic conditions allows you to buy shares and average out. Instead of waiting for a better price, an investor buys stocks, if funds allow, by averaging their price.

A falling market actually allows the average cost per share of the best asset in the portfolio to fall if the stock price falls below what the investor paid the first time around.

But keep in mind that a portfolio can take a big hit in the short term, and only in the long term (and that’s if there is strong confidence in the stock) does it make sense to hold those stocks and expand positions.

All these principles are adhered to by the “guru of investing” – the legendary Warren Buffett. He is credited with 2 famous phrases concerning long-term investing: “If you are not ready to own a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes” and “Our favorite holding period is always”.