Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammer
I don't fully understand why people say you can't time the market.
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The "you" who can't time the market isn't the individual "you," it's the collective "you." As in all of us.
Sure, you can win at roulette. There's a great thread on here how to do it. You'd probably enjoy it a lot. A person can go play roulette and come away a winner for that sitting. It happens all the time.
But, it's still true that
you can't beat the game of roulette. It's a fixed odds game. You can get lucky, but there's no real way to beat it systematically. So, "we" collectively always lose at roulette.
The saying about timing markets is meant as a generic aphorism. Sure, people get lucky and manage to buy low and sell high. Some others end up guessing wrong and do the reverse. Making decisions based on thinking we know where the bottoms and tops are is, in general, a tough way to find alpha. Anecdotes included.
That's what the saying means. In the off chance that was useful.