Approach To Investing

Your approach to investing is everything. Bottom line is that a lot of what you have heard on TV or read is not true.

Your approach to investing has to change if you think you can time the market. I just read an article at yahoo finance which backs up what I've known for years, that timing the market is virtually impossible.

Research for the twenty year period 1983-2003 is below.  Pay attention and learn something that you may not already know and certainly your stockbroker or financial advisor is not telling you.

1983-2003 period for S&P 500
Buy and Hold = 10%
Minus the 30 worst days = 19%
Minus the 20 best days = 5%

Moral of the story is that if you are willing to risk missing the best days trying to miss the worst days, go ahead but you will have probably wasted a lot of your time, and money and got nowhere. You need to change your approach to investing.

I have said it before and will say it again, buy a no-load mutual fund or ETF that tracks the S&P 500 and you are doing really all you can do.