08-31-2015, 05:10 PM
There is a difference between trying to time the market and an investment style. Having a large cash position to purchase on the dips doesn't necessarily mean that person is trying to time the market, it could be just their investment style or comfort level to hold cash. The problem trying to time the market is that nobody and I mean nobody can buy at the bottom on a continuous basis over their investment accumulation years. Can someone get lucky? Yes. Can someone get lucky 100% of the time? No, it's impossible to buy at the bottom 100 percent of the time and that is a fact. What matters most to an investor in the accumulation phase is time in the market, time in the market is money in the bank. And never overpay for any stock even if it's the BEST producing stock in the market. If you take two people, person A invests monthly in properly valued dividend paying stocks for 20 years and person B only invests on market dips (and try's to hit the bottoms) for 20 years the difference would be, well, the difference between the two would not be that dramatic over a 20 year span.