Stock Market Timing: Why the odds are strongly against it (and why investors should fear missing the upside, not avoiding the downside)

In an ideal world, one would be able to time the markets in order to exit before a given market downturn, wait for the bottom, and swiftly re-invest after the crash, resulting in substantial financial out-performance. However, no academic paper (or rigorous examination of guru records) supports long term success in terms of market timing. An excellent research paper from the Brandes Institute went into a deep statistical dive on…