Wouldnt it be nice if you were only in the stock market when it was going up and have everything transferred to cash while it is going down? It is called market timing and your broker or financial planner will tell you it cant be done. What that person just told you is he doesnt know how to do it. He doesnt know his job.

Even the Federal Reserve wrote an article saying that market timing does out perform the S&P500 index which is one of the best market directional indicators.

There are many advisory services that offer market timing. If you search on the Internet under Market Timing you will find them or you may look in various publications such as Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazine or Investors Business Daily newspaper. Once you have found several you will find that some have several buy and sell signals each year and a few average only one timing signal per year. Here it depends upon your personality and your approach to the market.

For the active trader the more signals the better and for the longer-term investor the slow signals are best. You will have to do your homework and will want to send for a trial subscription to their newsletters. You might have to try several until you find one you like.

Instead of subscribing to an advisory letter you may decide to make up your own timing signal. It will take some initial work, but once done you will not have to pay anyone else for the service.

Most of these timing methods use two a simple moving averages of from 50 days to 200 days plotted with the S&P500 Index or the NYSE Composite or the Nasdaq Composite if you are investing in the high tech stocks or mutual funds. Yes, this definitely works with mutual funds. The longer the time of the moving average the less frequent will be the Buy and Sell signals. The signal is generated when the index penetrates the moving average line. When the index is below the moving average and goes through it to the upside you have a Buy and visa versa for the Sell. Nothing complicated.

If you want to piggyback the work of Investors Business Daily look at their Mutual Fund Index where they show both a 50-day and 200-day moving average lines. Both of these methods gave sell signals last September/ October. Would your investments have been more profitable if you had gone to cash at that time? Probably. The 200-day line still has you in cash while the 50-day line had a Buy/Sell in January and a new Buy about April 20.

Basically what market timing does is protect you from any big loss in a bear market. The first rule for all smart investors is to protect their capital. If your broker does not know how to do this you need a new broker.

Its your money. Keep it.

Al Thomas

Albert W. Thomas has spent most of his life in the field of finance. In 1965 he founded an insurance holding company, Security Dynamics Investment Corporation, after having been an agent and General Agent for several life insurance companies. In 1970 he became cofounder and president of Real Life Estate, Inc., that marketed a unique real estate and life insurance package.

After he became interested in commodities he bought a seat for his personal trading on the Chicago Open Board of Trade, which is now known as the MidAmerica Commodity Exchange. Later he became a full time trader and also acted as a commodity broker for a few select clients. By fellow floor traders Al is considered to be an excellent technical analyst much of which is outlined in his book IF IT DOESN'T GO UP, DON'T BUY IT! It became a best seller on Amazon.

In 1981 he sold his membership on the Exchange and with his wife, Carolyn, lived full time aboard their 41' ketch, the Aumakua (which means guardian angel in Hawaiian). They sailed in Florida and the Bahamas for two years.

He founded World Trading Group in 1984 that grew to the seventh largest introducing commodity brokerage firm in the U.S. with 35 offices from coast to coast, Alaska and Canada. It was sold in 1992.

Al is a graduate of Northwestern University with a B.S. degree in Commerce and is a member of MENSA. He is now president of Williamsburg Investment Company that syndicates his weekly financial column since 1999 to more than 300 newspapers and writes a financial market letter called Over My Shoulder that is quoted in Barron?s and many other publications. A 3-month trial subscription is available on his web site. He is a regular guest on several financial radio talk shows.

His favorite pastime is fishing.

Mr. Thomas is available for speaking engagements. Please call 321-453-5300 for more information.