I’ve heard that nobody can time the market.   I have heard that over and over.   I have heard it from academics in love with their finance theories inclusive of Efficient Markets / Random Walk.  I have heard it from supposed investment experts who hide behind buy-and-hold and index investing as a way to collect fees.  Mostly, I have heard that you cannot time the market from people who have either never tried or who tried and failed and then gave up.

Additionally, I have been told that I’d lose credibility if I ever claimed I could time the market.  If making a statement that goes against “common wisdom” impacts my credibility more than the facts surrounding my techniques and performance, then so be it.

For now, I’ll let you decide what “success” at timing the market means.   Does it mean that you have to be 100% correct every instance?   Does it mean that you have to outperform by 10%, 20%….100% compared to just following the market?

All the times I have heard “you cannot time the market”, I have never heard how they precisely define success or failure at that pursuit.

Since this site appeared on the Internet in January of 2005, I have offered the HEDGEfolios Timing Indicator as my primary indicator for market timing.

Here are 34 dates where I said the market’s direction was turning during the past 5 years:

• Bearish    February 14, 2005
• Bullish     May 31, 2005
• Bearish    September 26, 2005
• Bullish     November 7, 2005
• Bearish    April 10, 2006
• Bullish     July 10, 2006
• Bearish    July 17, 2006
• Bullish     July 24, 2006
• Bearish    November 27, 2006
• Bullish     February 20, 2007
• Bearish    February 26, 2007
• Bullish     March 19, 2007
• Bearish    April 30, 2007
• Bullish     June 4, 2007
• Bearish    June 11, 2007
• Bullish     September 4, 2007
• Bearish    October 22, 2007
• Bullish     December 10, 2007
• Bearish    January 22, 2008
• Bullish     February 4, 2008
• Bearish    March 3, 3008
• Bullish     March 17, 2008
• Bearish    June 9, 2008
• Bullish     July 21, 2008
• Bearish    September 15, 2008
• Bullish     October 13, 2008
• Bearish    January 12, 2009
• Bullish     March 16, 2009
• Bearish    June 15, 2009
• Bullish     July 20, 2009
• Bearish    August 17, 2009
• Bullish     September 14, 2009
• Bearish    October 26, 2009
• Bullish     November 9, 2009

As a secondary measure, you can evaluate the performance of all the SPY signals I have given.

• DOWN    March 28, 2005
• UP          August 1, 2005
• DOWN    October 3, 2005
• UP          October 31, 2005
• DOWN    April 10, 2006
• UP          July 3, 2006
• DOWN    January 8, 2007
• UP          September 17, 2007
• DOWN    October 22, 2007
• UP          February 25, 2008
• DOWN    June 2, 2008
• UP          July 21, 2008
• DOWN    August 25, 2008
• UP          October 20, 2008
• DOWN    January 12, 2009
• UP          March 9, 2009
• DOWN    June 22, 2009

I challenge anyone to actually compute the performance of either or both of those data sets.   You decide if that proves or disproves whether it is possible to time the market.