patrick.net

You can leave the money in whatever you want in your roth. If you invest it now, all of the years gains go into it, vs losing a years gains by putting it in there at the end of the year.

Having the money ready to use and in the account is probably more important than keeping it outside waiting for the market to correct, then trying to deposit it later. Either way, you're making 0% because you're not putting it into the market.

Truthplease says

When to place 5K in your IRA

For IRA or company 401K...Anytime as long as your putting it into a cash (money market fund).. later you spread across your choice of mutual funds... buying on markets dips/pull back.

If you have the cash, contribute at the earliest, Jan of each contribution year.

Agreed. I put my Roth contribution in January without fail. Even when I was unemployed I put that money in. Several years I sold equities in my individual to scrape up the money to transfer to Roth. At this point my Roth portfolio is several times larger than any other single account.

During the market downleg I jumped into T's at first, later into FINPX, Fidelity's inflation-protected bond fund. These days it'd probably be FCSTX, a tax-free bond fund.

go stocks balls to the wall. the world is not all the EU and USA.

Thanks for the suggestions. I was also looking at the FCSTX. That's probably where I will go for now.

My premise behind this question originated from reading a 2012 fund analysis and forecast. I can't find the thing now, but I stumbled on it and there was some enlighting analysis in there about the geopolitical landscape and volitility for this year.