It is a fact that stock market valuation levels, as measured by market price-earnings (P/E) ratios, for example, are not overly useful in predicting short-term market returns. It is also true that they are quite good for predicting longer run returns, such as over ten or twenty years.

Even with recent weakness, market valuations are viewed as slightly expensive in the US (a bit less so here in Canada). So while the coming year may largely be an unknown - though RBC strategists suggest we should give stocks the benefit of the doubt in 2018 - the coming decade is quite likely to produce fairly modest equity returns here in North America. 

Saving what you can will be a prudent course.