Time in the market vs Timing the market

[BlueKelah]

Obviously most people would love to time the market (I for one would be totally devoting myself into that pursuit).
The problem is, I don't think I have the skills to get the timing right (maybe half of times as per random chance)!!
I bet nobody else here could (at least if the person can, he is unlikely to be here).
But of course most people think they can!
Our skill is always far over the average haha

For a regular rate rise environment followed by recession its quite easy to time the bottom or be near it. Usually you will see PE drop as PRICE corrects due to rate rises. This has happened so far this year. later on there will be capitulation as price drops even more and recession starts to get priced in. 

As the economy rolls over and recession is well underway, the PE will suddenly shoot up as earnings go down. For eg. if earnings of most companies drop by half and price is same, then PE suddenly doubles. a combination of skyhigh market PE(not due to a bull market)/ recession/rate rise reversal would indicate a very likely bottom and be a good time to buy. 

At the moment we are still far from the bottom as US has not officially announced a recession yet. In 2008 the recession was only formally announced in Dec 2008 and market did another dip till the march 2009 rebound. I believe we could see a similar pattern this year. 

It will be a good time to start accumulating when STI drops at least below 2600 levels