On the subject of market timing, the following two items appeared in Pensions & Investments in the last 2 days:" Managers see another quarter of large institutional outflows — eVestment" (that was 4Q2015)"BofA: Managers pull back from cash, turn more positive on global economy" (this is February/March 2016)P&I is the newspaper of institutional investing and is quite expensive (over $1000/yr for full access) so I doubt that many or any people but me read this, and I'm going to cut and paste part of the BofA study:
Money managers are reducing their cash holdings and raising their global equity, commodities and real estate allocations, said Bank of America Merrill Lynch's latest monthly fund manager survey.
Average cash holdings declined to 5.1% of managers' portfolios in March, down from a 15-year high of 5.6% last month. Meanwhile, a net 13% of managers reported being underweight commodities, compared to 29% last month, marking the biggest monthly jump in the survey question's 10-year history
“With cash levels now slightly above their three-year average, investors no longer are sending the unambiguous buy signal we saw last month,†said Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, in a news release.
The survey of 209 money managers representing $591 billion in assets under management was conducted March 4-10.
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To me, this is market timing in a BIG way by the big money. Institutional guys went on a buying binge in February just like I did on 2/11.
The next time a mutual fund propagandist or investment advisor tells you that passive investing is the only way (i.e., give all your money to them), keep this in mind.