Are you scared of investing when the market is high? Don't be.

It may seem counterintuitive, but it's actually better to invest when the market reaches an all-time high than to sit on the sidelines with your cash.

Don't worry about starting to invest just because the U.S. stock market recently hit an all-time high.

Over the 12-month period since January 1926, investing in large-cap U.S. stocks at their new peak yielded an average of 10.3%, compared to an average of 8.6% at other times, according to new research from Schroders. It has been shown that

However, when you look at investments over 24 and 36 months, the results become more even. According to the data, the 24-month investment yielded an 8% annual yield for both options, while the 36-month investment yielded a record annual yield of 7.6%, compared to 7.5% otherwise.

This may seem counterintuitive, but stock market highs are usually followed by even higher highs. A peak can sometimes be followed by a crash, but it's much more common for a market to continue rising than to crash completely.

Humans are ultimately in control of the market, and our emotions follow each other's lead. Volatility tends to be concentrated in downturns, and conversely, all-time highs tend to be concentrated in upturns.

Of the 1,176 months since January 1926, the U.S. stock market has hit all-time highs in 354 of those months, or 30% of the months.

Additionally, we found that $100 invested in the U.S. stock market in January 1926 would be worth $85,008 by the end of 2023, adjusted for inflation, for an annual growth rate of 7.1 percent.

However, a strategy of withdrawing money from the market and cashing it out every time the market reaches an all-time high would only return you $8,790 a year, or 4.7%.

Even looking at a shorter time horizon, $100 invested 10 years ago would have yielded $237. By comparison, if the investor switched to cash every time the market reached an all-time high, he would have $181.

The same results hold true for 20 years ($382 vs. $255), 30 years ($864 vs. $403), and 50 years ($3,031 vs. $1,180).