The expensive part of timing the market was never the selling -> it was knowing when to get back in

The expensive part of market timing was never the selling. It was figuring out when to get back in, and I never got that 2nd part right.

People treat timing like one decision: exit before the drop. It's two. You have to be right about when to leave and right about when to return. Miss either leg and the math turns fast.

The math is brutal because the best days cluster next to the worst ones: According to JPMorgan's analysis of the S&P 500 from 2002–2021, a fully invested position returned roughly 9.5% annualized. Miss the 10 best days and that drops to 5.3%. Miss the 20 best and you're at 2.0%. Miss the 30 best and you're at -0.4%, near breakeven across two full decades of being mostly invested. Nearly 70% of the market's best days fell within two weeks of its worst days. Stepping out to avoid a bad stretch almost always meant missing the snapback.

The behavioral data confirms the damage: Dalbar's 30-year QAIB study shows the average equity fund investor has underperformed the S&P 500 by roughly 3–4 percentage points annually, not because of fees, but because of timing decisions: buying after rallies, selling during fear.

The uncomfortable conclusion: my job isn't to dodge downturns. It's to own things I'm willing to sit through them in., it was less exciting but effective.

Anyone here actually timed both an exit and re-entry correctly more than once? -> genuinely curious whether that's skill or survivorship.