Timing the market...sort of.

[Scanner]

I'd rather buy on the way down rather than wait for it to trend upward. You can't time the bottom but you can buy depreciating assets (mutual fund shares). I think a -9% return is a good place to buy. All indicators are that it's on sale. . .you may fall a little bit more but the problem is you don't want to be on the sidelines when the bulls take off.

[m3racer]

That Monkey Mama blog is a little confusing.

[scfr]

That Monkey Mama blog is a little confusing.

Sorry - The relevant portion of the blog entry came quite a ways down. Basically, she found an article that suggested the 27th or 28th MIGHT be the best days to put money in to mutual funds.

But if you want to dollar cost average, the important thing is to pick a date and an amount and just keep putting the money in to the fund like clockwork.

[Broken Arrow]

Quick, general word about timing: I think it works great on one's personal finance, and I hope that more people will focus on that. Presumably, you know your cash flow and you know what your road map is....

Timing the market? Well, you guys know how I feel about that. I don't want to get bogged down on this again, but basically, I think we can live life just fine without having to do this (or at least not too much).

[lucasrd]

I add to my mutual funds every other week. I always add on a down day for the market (like Friday)...makes me feel better to know I didn't invest at the VERY top

also, in a book by Jim Cramer he says he invests regularly every month for his kids. If the market goes down by 10% or more from it's highs he'll stick in the remainder of his money for the year... We don't all have that much cash sitting around, but it's an interesting way of doing it.

[m3racer]

Is it safe to say that if the Dow, S&P, Nasdaq are all down a given day that the Vanguard total stock market index would be down as well? What other parameters are there?

[disneysteve]

Is it safe to say that if the Dow, S&P, Nasdaq are all down a given day that the Vanguard total stock market index would be down as well? What other parameters are there?

There are various other indexes but I would agree that if the 3 majors are down, that fund will be down as well.

[humandraydel]

The S&P 500 makes up about 75% of the Total Market. So, yes.