With the constant inundation of advertisements, books, articles and now cable television broadcasting financial shows recommending investing in the stock market, it takes a truly independent mind to ask the question - "Does it always pay to invest in the stock market?". The answer is "yes and no". In that case, when is it a good time to invest in the stock market, and when is it good to be out of the markets entirely?

Most investors today have not seen the Great Depression of the 1930s, and many investors do not remember the 1966-1982 bear market, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average went exactly nowhere. Investing in the bond markets yielded far better returns, and by the end of that period, equities were amongst the most hated form of investments. In hindsight, that was the best of times to invest in the stock market. And correspondingly, 1966 was a great time to have unloaded all stocks.

In the current environment, stocks continue to be richly valued, still suffering from the after effects of the great bull market blow off of the late-90s. Markets were fairly valued for a brief period in early 2003, but then took off on a cyclical bull run which led the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new high in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, the markets simply lost ground and recovered - a five year period of little to no growth. If a new bear market takes hold now, it may be another three to four years before the markets see another new high, which would make it a decade with no advancement in the stock markets.

And yet many investors are making good money through investing. And it is not just those who are dollar cost averaging down (and then benefiting when the stock market makes a new high), but there are those who are investing fresh money in specific sectors of the market where a new bull run is just getting underway, and tripling and quadrupling their investment. If you become good at sniffing out new bull markets, then it is always a great time to invest in the stock market, and it will always pay off. If you only invest in the stock market indexes, then you must worry about market valuations, business cycles, federal bank interest rates and so forth - so that you can avoid the decade long flat markets, and help your money grow faster by staying out of the markets during its bear cycles.

Does it always pay to invest in the stock markets? If you identify a strong uptrend and invest in the companies that stand to benefit the most from this uptrend, it will always pay to invest in the stock markets. And the best way to identify such an uptrend is by taking the help of some outstanding investment newsletters that specialize in identifying new bull trends. Similarly, expanding your exposure to emerging nations and other international stock markets will improve your chances of having your investments pay off. There will still be the occasional period where there are absolutely no bull runs anywhere (a true Great Depression) - at which time, it is best to get out of all markets and hang to your money in cash instruments alone. In almost all other times, you can make your investment in the stock market pay for you.