Market timing: The relative position of a share's price to its own intrinsic value is of greater importance.

The market's movements are not perfectly reflected in the movement of the individual share. 

• Even during the sharpest decline, some of the shares hold their value very well. 
• During the bull run, some of the shares do not go anywhere. 
• At the same time, some shares magnify the movements of the market by two or three times, while others (mainly blue chips) only partially reflect the market movements. 
• Thus even if we get the market timing right, it is not possible to match exactly what is achieved by the market. 
• The relative position of a share's price to its own intrinsic value is of equal if not of greater importance. 

Market timing is more an art than a science. 

• There are some people who are highly gifted and are able to make good market timing decisions.  And yet precisely because market timing decisions only have to be made once every 5 years, it is critical that they are made in the correct way.  
• One wrong decision can either leave one out of the market for several years (i.e. after missing the start of a new bull run) or suffer heavy losses (i.e. missing the start of a new bear run).  
• There are few of us who can be like Warren Buffet who made two timing decisions in 15 years and both of them were nearly spot on. 
• We can never hope to be like Warren Buffett but we can use records of past market movements to help our investment decision making.