Take your money our of the stock market

[Bernardo de La Paz]

61. "last crash"? Are you referring to the crash in 1999, 2008, 2021 or the more recent piddly 2% day crashes?

Getting out at the top of 1999 or 2008 would have been smart. 2021 was harsh, but clearly the full amount recovered pretty quickly (a year or two) and in larger view looks more like a blip. That would have been a good one to stay in for, in hindsight, if that is what you are talking about.

Timing the market is very difficult, but can be arranged in stages and with gradualism if one does not expect 100% accuracy. If an investor can gain even only 60 % of a bull and avoid 60% of a bear, they are doing well and will do much better than buy-and-hold or even dollar cost averaging. One can end up in the 60% by getting out early, before the final top or after a top, and buying back in too early or too late.

One way of gradualism, especially for chart readers, is if you have a discipline with trailing stops and also with pullback stops set after new buys. If you have a set of stocks and they are rising and you keep raising trailing stops, then as the market tops and turns over, one by one your stocks will get stopped out and you will have timed the market. Similarly, if you are tracking interesting stocks and they are forming bases after a bear, you can see a breakout here or there and start nibbling in. Some buys will get stopped out because it was too early. As you find more and more breakouts, you find yourself more and more invested as a bull market gets underway.

S&P 500. Notice the log price scales on the lefts. Very important must-have feature when using charts.