My mentors were all market timers so market timing is what I learned to do. I made money with market timing for many years, but I would've made more money if I had just bought and held a S&P 500 index fund. Of course, I would've made even more money if I had just held some of my early tech holdings! Market timing can work but it is a brutal fight. Market timing inside a taxable account is suicide, it isn't too bad if you operate inside a tax deferred account. Buy and hold works the best if you are lucky enough to buy a really good stock. Being overweighted in a great stock is the best deal possible but most of us never get the chance. Or, when we do get the chance we don't see it, or can't hold it. In the early 90's I put most of my portfolio into Intel warrants. Those Intel warrants ended up being worth $10M in the big 1999 runup but I sold well before then. I just didn't have the guts to hold on to such a large position. The volatility created so much stress that I had to sell. For the average person the best bet is an index fund. I thought I was a big time investor but I couldn't handle the stress when my account balance was whipping back and forth. The funny thing is that in hindsight I was correct and there wasn't really any risk in my position. But I didn't know it at the time and I couldn't convince myself to stop looking at the numbers all day long.