Get Smart: Is It Too Late to Invest in US Stocks?

In November 2022, shares of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) hit US$88.

The company formerly known as Facebook had lost three-quarters of its value.

Wall Street was in full panic mode.

The metaverse was a money pit.

TikTok was eating its lunch.

Apple’s privacy changes had kneecapped its advertising business.

Every headline screamed the same thing: Mark Zuckerberg has lost the plot.

At that point, it was tempting to agree.

But here’s what the market missed.

Underneath all the noise, Meta still had close to two billion daily users.

Its advertising platform remained dominant.

And the company was still generating enormous amounts of free cash flow.

In other words, the business wasn’t broken — the narrative was.

The Smart All Stars Portfolio bought shares of Meta for the first time in March 2022 at around US$202.

That was months BEFORE the bottom.

Shares would go on to fall another 56%, all the way down to US$88.

By any definition, our timing was terrible.

But we didn’t panic.

We looked at the business, not the stock price.

When shares recovered and the business proved it could adapt — pulling back on capital expenditure, refocusing on efficiency, and monetising its platforms better than ever — the portfolio bought more.

In December 2023, The Smart All Stars Portfolio added to its position at close to US$320.

And in May 2025, the portfolio bought again at US$452.

Three purchases.

Three different prices.

One similarity: none of them was at the bottom.

Meta’s share price today? Around US$688.

Every single purchase is in the green.

Here’s the part I want you to sit with: we did not need to time the market.

The Smart All Stars Portfolio did not catch the bottom.

The portfolio did not buy the “perfect” price.

What we did was invest in a business we believed in — and stayed the course.

And that’s not the end of the story.

On 22 July 2024, CNA aired a segment where I talked about Meta.

At that point, shares were at US$487.

I remember the reaction.

Among the comments online, one stuck out.

The gist?

If you’re hearing about a stock on mainstream media, you’re already too late.

Don’t listen to the man in the suit (that’s me!).

Educate yourself.

Fair enough — I agree that you should educate yourself.

That part, I have no quarrel with.

But here’s what happened after that comment was posted.

Meta’s share price went from US$487 to around US$688 today.

That’s a gain of over 40%.

So much for being “late to the party.”

This is the trap many investors fall into.

They assume that because a stock has already risen, the opportunity is over.

But that logic only makes sense if you’re watching the stock price.

If you’re watching the business — its revenue growth, its free cash flow, its competitive position — the picture can look very different.

Meta’s daily active users had grown to 3.58 billion by the end of 2025.

The social network giant’s AI-powered advertising suite has reached a US$60 billion annual run rate.

Does that sound like a business whose best days are behind it?

This brings me to a question I hear all the time from investors eyeing US stocks.

I get it.

The S&P 500 has had a bumpy ride this year — pulled down by the conflict in the Middle East, oil price spikes, and a wall of uncertainty.

Headlines are scary.

The instinct to wait for a “better” entry point is strong.

But think about this.

If we had waited for the “perfect” time to buy Meta, we would still be waiting.

There is always a reason not to invest.

In March 2022, it was rising interest rates.

In 2023, it was recession fears.

In 2024, it was “you’re late to the party.”

In 2025, it was the Liberation Day tariffs.

Today, it’s the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

At every point, there was a perfectly reasonable excuse to stay on the sidelines.

And at every point, the business kept compounding.

The stress of investing in US stocks shouldn’t come from trying to find the perfect price or the perfect business.

Both are impossible.

Instead, the real edge comes from discipline.

The discipline to invest in sound businesses when headlines are ugly.

The discipline to hold through the inevitable rough patches.

And the discipline to add to your position when the business proves itself, even at higher prices — just as we did with Meta.

The Smart All Stars Portfolio first bought Meta at US$202.

The share price fell to US$88.

The portfolio held.

It bought more at US$320.

And again at US$452.

Today, all three purchases are winners.

That’s not luck. That’s discipline.

The good news?

It’s a skill within the reach of anyone, including you.

When the market corrects, most people see a crisis. We see an opportunity to apply a system.

While others are paralysed by mixed signals from the energy sector and tech stocks, we’re sticking to a practical framework that filters the noise.

In the upcoming webinar, I am going to show you exactly how I chooses businesses that thrive amid disruption. If you’re tired of guessing your next move, this is for you.

Join the webinar here.

Tired of articles that just say “do your own research”? Get Smart, our weekly investing newsletter shows you how. You’ll learn simple ways to size up a stock, like what signs to look for and how to know if it’s worth your money. These are tools our team uses, and you can use them too. Sign up here for free and start investing with more confidence.

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Disclosure: Chin Hui Leong owns shares of Meta Platforms.

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