Master Strategy for $30k Retirement Fund

I was thinking about how to best optimize my retirement fund. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for way too long. But with the current pandemic, the overall stock market seems to be in a downward trajectory in the short term.

I’ve read that it takes several months for the bottom to really take hold since the financial information is usually delayed and therefore the reaction.

It did drop pretty significantly in March but has rallied back since then. Today is April 23, 2020.

Today is January 26, 2021 and the stock market boomed! I totally missed the boat on TSLA. I was remember wanting to buy the stock at $235 and since then it has increase 8 fold! I clearly have no clue about the stock market. Everything I ever learned about it is completely wrong.

It has virtually nothing to do with the underlying company or fundamental analysis. It is pure speculation and there are too many variables that cannot be anticipated. For example, GameStop has been in the news the last couple of days because it was the target of a Reddit group that wanted to punish the institutional short sellers. Just a couple of months ago it was around $5 today it hit $190.