Only liars manage to always be out during bad times and in during good times.
The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good.
Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections themselves.
Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.
I can't recall ever once having seen the name of a market timer on Forbes' annual list of the richest people in the world. If it were truly possible to predict corrections, you'd think somebody would have made billions by doing it.
Some calamities - the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 - have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known.
What to do when the market goes down? Read the opinions of the investment gurus who are quoted in the WSJ. And, as you read, laugh. We all know that the pundits can't predict short-term market movements. Yet there they are, desperately trying to sound intelligent when they really haven't got a clue.
We continue to make more money when snoring than when active.
Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient.
The average investor's return is significantly lower than market indices due primarily to market timing.
Market timing, by the way, is a tag some buy-and-hold investors use to put down anything that involves using your brain. These are the same people who like to watch the locomotive coming and get run down in the name of discipline.
We are convinced that the intelligent investor can derive satisfactory results from pricing of either type (market timing or fundamental analysis via price). We are equally sure that if he places his emphasis on timing, in the sense of forecasting, he will end up as a speculator and with a speculator's financial results." And "The speculator's primary interest lies in anticipating and profiting from market fluctuations. The investor's primary interest lies in acquiring and holding suitable securities at suitable prices.
The idea that a bell rings to signal when investors should get into or out of the stock market is simply not credible. After nearly fifty years in this business, I do not know of anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. I don't even know anybody who knows anybody who has done it successfully and consistently. Yet market timing appears to be increasingly embraced by mutual fund investors and the professional managers of fund portfolios alike.
All economic movements, by their very nature, are motivated by crowd psychology.
In the financial markets, hindsight is forever 20/20, but foresight is legally blind. And thus, for most investors, market timing is a practical and emotional impossibility.
We've long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who behave in the market like children.
Do you know what investing for the long run but listening to market news everyday is like? It's like a man walking up a big hill with a yo-yo and keeping his eyes fixed on the yo-yo instead of the hill.
I don't believe all this nonsense about market timing. Just buy good value and when the market is ready that value will be recognized.
Having observed his market calls real time over the years, I can say that Jason Perl's application of the DeMark Indicators distinguishes his work from industry peers when it comes to market timing. This book demonstrates how traders can benefit from his insight, using the studies to identify the exhaustion of established trends or the onset of new ones. Whether you're fundamentally or technically inclined, Perl's DeMark Indicators is an invaluable trading resource.
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