Quotes on Market Timing

Attempting to guess short-term swings in individual stocks, the stock market or the economy is not likely to produce consistently good results. Short-term developments are too unpredictable.

It makes no sense for individual investors to jump in and out of the market. People who trade in that way rarely die rich, whereas the patient investor often does.

If some of the most astute people in Wall Street have frequently guessed wrong in trying to profit by stock market movements, it may not be too much to assume that the attempt itself has represented a misconception of the proper function of management.

My stocks sometimes get overpriced, but in the long run this kind of company, if you can find it, will outperform the market and the economy. The worst thing you can do is try to catch the swings, sell out too soon and be afraid to buy back in.

In all my 55 years on Wall Street, before I retired to do something vastly more important, I was never able to say when the market would go up or down. Nor was I able to find anybody on Earth whose opinion I would value on the subject of when it would go up and down.

Most people who have been really successful in the securities markets say the same thing -- that they're not smart enough to get into the market and out of it. So they tend to remain more or less in the market at all times.

It is just appalling the nerve strain people put themselves under trying to buy something today and sell it tomorrow. It's a small-win proposition. If you are a truly long-range investor, of which I am practically a vanishing breed, the profits are so tremendously greater.

I know plenty of guys who consider themselves to be long-term investors but who are still perfectly happy to trade in and out and back into their favorite stocks.

The prevailing view has been that the market will earn a high rate of return if the holding period is long enough, but entry point is what really matters.

Being extremely early is tantamount to being wrong, so contrarians are well advised to develop an understanding of the psychology of the sellers.

Being very early and being wrong look exactly the same 99% of the time.

People spend all this time trying to figure out "What time of the year should I make an investment? When should I invest?" And it's such a waste of time. It's so futile.

The only problem with market timing is getting the timing right.

People who exit the stock market to avoid a decline are odds-on favorites to miss the next rally.

If timing the market is such a great strategy, why haven't we seen the names of any market timers at the top of the Forbes list of richest Americans?

I am an exponent of the philosophy that the main objective of common stock investment should be pricing, not timing; and by pricing I mean the endeavor to buy securities at prices which are attractive, letting timing take care of itself.

People spend an unbelievable amount of mental energy trying to pick what the market's going to do, what time of the year to buy it. It's just not worth it.

Market timing is speculating and it rarely, if ever, pays off.

I don't believe all this nonsense about market timing. Just buy very good value and when the market is ready that value will be recognized.