▲ | frontfor a day ago | |||||||
Why do you think you’re able to time the market? What if it keeps going up? Even if you’re right that the market eventually drops, you’ll still need to be right in timing your re-entry. It’s not as easy as it sounds. | ||||||||
▲ | andrewmcwatters a day ago | parent [-] | |||||||
Because people so commonly misuse and misunderstand the phrase "time the market," I'll take a moment to clarify: If a kid comes down your street selling you lemons because their lemonade stand didn't work out, and they start selling them to you at $10/lb and you say, "Uh thanks kid, but I can buy them from Walmart for 75¢ each," and then another kid running a failed, overpriced lemonade venture comes around and tries to sell them to you for $5/lb and he clarifies that all the grocery stores near by are sold out and aren't getting any more lemons until next season, and CNN says there is a new insect killing off citrus trees, you're not timing anything when you look in your backyard, which has two producing lemon trees and you start offering them to your neighbors at $2/lb since no one can buy them from stores. Now for the adults in the room, if 3 month treasury bills are yielding nearly the same as 10 year treasury bills, ...you’re not "timing the market" by preferring one over the other. You’re recognizing the price of risk and time. If lending money for ten years barely pays more than lending for three months, the market is telling you something about growth, inflation, and future policy rates. Choosing the shorter bill isn’t speculation. It’s responding to the information embedded in yields, just as choosing to sell lemons from your backyard isn’t speculation but simply adjusting to supply, demand, and alternatives available. | ||||||||
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