Many investors believe that timing the market gives better returns and reduces risk. I am afraid that's not the case.
If you are in your thirties, you can expect to live through roughly 10 more bear markets, big and small, at least. Are you really going to freak out, panic and go fully into cash every time? It makes no sense. Market timing doesn't work over the long run. It just... doesn't! Financial advisors and investment managers would try to convince you they don't do market-timing, but they actually do. They 'packaged' their sales pitch in a different way, using fanciful investing jargon such as 'downside protection', 'asset-class rotation', 'tactical allocation', 'style-rotation' and 'sector-rotation'. All these strategies imply that they are able to predict when to move from one part of the market to another, which honestly they don't. Nobody does!

Lots of investors miscalculate/underestimate the risk of bad market timing. They...