[masraum]

Originally Posted by aschen

Taking high market position as a reminder to rebalance portfolio to something more appropriate for goals seems reasonable and a different thing.

The recovery of down markets are historically very swift and if you get lucky catching the low point, you likely miss the recovery. You have to buy the winning lottery ticket twice in a row as the money guys podcast says.

Right. Even if you could be certain that you sold high, and you then had some $$ sitting and waiting, you might miss the bottom of the dip which would be fine. But the other problem is, (totally hypothetically), if I sold today, and the market continued to go up for another year, and then it dipped, but never got below the level that it's at today, then I'd have missed gains. It just doesn't make sense, because there are too many variables and you will almost never get it right.

Rebalancing is different than selling and hoping for a dip so you can realize gains when you buy back in.