Mostly because I don't trust myself to push cash into the market when there is blood on the streets. Or really ever, for that matter. Both due to thinking "everything is still overvalued" as well as decision paralysis even when/if I do feel the time is generally right.

I'm generally overly conservative, so this is somewhat of a middle ground. Along the lines of the best diet is the one you can consistently stick with, not necessarily the most theoretically optimal one. Same goes with investing for me.

I intellectually understand it's likely a worse bet than just dumping 100% into VTI or whatnot, but investing isn't simply a mathematical game - at least in my case.

> A tidal wave has been rolling through this country sweeping away everyone who follows the safe socially sanctioned wisdom about investing.

Agreed. I'd be retired now if I would have been able to shake the conventional wisdom in this area and just YOLO'ed it.

Math is only useful when you apply it to something that has value, like knowledge. Warren Buffett got it by reading balance sheets all day. He'd see through all the smooth talking and marketing because of it. One of the things that makes the system broken these days is no one has time to do what he did. People just park their money in passive funds like VTI. I'd be surprised if even Vanguard read these companies balance sheets. Although I know the fund managers care a lot about environment social governance.