New Delhi, April 7 -- Should investors wait endlessly for markets to get cheaper, or just stay invested and let time do the heavy lifting? In a recent post on X, Niranjan Avasthi, Senior Vice President, Edelweiss Mutual Fund, has reignited one of the oldest debates in investing - whether valuation decides returns, or whether patience eventually matters more.

In a tweet, Avasthi laid out what he called the "valuation vs time paradox in investing" - the idea that while buying at lower valuations does improve short-term return odds, the power of valuation fades as the investment horizon stretches.

"A widely held belief in investing is that buying at lower valuations tends to result in better returns, while investing at higher valuations ca...