Sitting on cash might sound safe, but for some investors right now, it feels anything but. One investor on Reddit recently described the experience as a “mental drag,” saying they have been holding about 30% of their portfolio in cash because they “fundamentally refuse to pay these premiums for mature businesses.”
The problem? The market keeps going up.
When Discipline Starts To Hurt
The investor said that “the psychological toll of holding cash right now is brutal,” as finding stocks with a true margin of safety has become nearly impossible, with many high-quality companies trading at “25-30x forward earnings” and appearing “priced to perfection.” While their cash is earning around 5% in short-term Treasurys, it still feels like underperforming as “the broader indices just blindly grind up every single week.”
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That disconnect is where the stress kicks in. Holding cash is supposed to give you options, but instead it just feels like watching gains slip by. After about 18 months of waiting, the investor said they’re starting to wonder if their patience is running out.
The situation highlights a core tension in value investing. Traditional advice encourages patience and discipline. It was summed up by one commenter as, “the market is a no-called-strike game and you just wait for your pitch.” But in a market that rarely offers obvious bargains, that patience can start to feel like paralysis.
Investors Push Back On The Strategy
Many other investors pushed back hard, arguing that the market has offered plenty of chances to buy. Some pointed to recent dips where major companies briefly traded at more reasonable valuations, saying “it was basically shooting fish in a barrel” during those periods.
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Others argued the problem is not the market, but expectations. Waiting for extremely low entry prices can result in missing solid long-term opportunities. “You cannot wait for the perfect price,” one investor in the thread said. Another added that anchoring to unrealistic targets can leave investors “sitting on the sidelines during a multi-year rally.”
A common suggestion was to take a more flexible approach. Instead of going all in or staying entirely in cash, investors recommended gradually deploying capital. “If the price isn’t quite there but getting close, take a small position to start,” one commenter said, suggesting a partial entry instead of waiting indefinitely.
Others took an even simpler view: stop trying to time the market altogether. “Just [dollar-cost average] into the market and forget,” one person wrote, pointing to index funds as an easier alternative for those struggling with stock picking.
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The Psychological Trade-Off
Still, not everyone thinks holding cash is a mistake. Some investors argued that the discomfort is actually part of the process. “The psychological toll you are describing is real and it is actually the feature, not the bug, of a disciplined value framework,” one commenter said.
From that perspective, the pressure to abandon discipline is exactly what leads to poor decisions later. Holding cash during expensive markets can feel wrong in the moment, but …
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