With U.S. stocks rising over the past four years despite successive negative shocks, former hedge fund manager Jim Cramer stressed that it is important to keep investing steadily rather than trying to predict market timing.

CNBC reported on Oct. 12 that Cramer cited staying in the market amid uncertainty as a key lesson left by the recent bull market.

Cramer noted that the S&P 500 has climbed about 118 percent since its low on Oct. 12, 2022. Over that period, U.S. stocks endured the Federal Reserve's aggressive rate hikes, a banking-sector crisis, broad tariffs and the Iran war. Inflation and worries about an economic slowdown also persisted, but failed to derail the upward trend.

“The real lesson of investing is that there doesn't seem to be a separate good time to invest,” he said. “Bad news happens frequently, but even so, investing is the easiest way to make money.” He said there were reasons to sell whenever markets wobbled, but those who stayed invested ultimately made gains.

He also cited examples of returns in individual stocks. According to Cramer, Nvidia rose about 1,875 percent over the same period, turning a $10,000 investment into $197,505. Meta Platforms also climbed 488 percent, pushing the value of $10,000 to more than $58,800.

He stressed, however, that the key was not picking next week's market leaders. Rather than trying to forecast both selloffs and rebounds, he said maintaining an investing mindset even in uncertainty was important. “We couldn't predict the declines or the rebounds,” he said. “Over the past four years, we could have left the market many times, but if we had, we would be much poorer than we are now.”

The gains that can be missed by stepping out of a rising market also appeared in JPMorgan analysis. According to JPMorgan, from 2005 to 2024, if an investor put $10,000 into the S&P 500 but missed the 10 trading days with the biggest gains, the final assets were less than half of what they would have been by staying invested throughout. It means that trying to avoid short-term volatility but missing key rebound points can sharply reduce long-term returns.

“Stay in the market, keep buying and don't lose faith,” Cramer said. “That is the lesson left by the four-year bull market that was not easily broken.” He said the message was to keep investing with a long-term perspective rather than being swayed by interest rates, geopolitical tensions and trade conflicts.