The richest 1% of the US has maybe 20% of their wealth in common stocks. Yes you can buy and hold this way. They ouwn private shares, preferred stocks, private holdings.... If you noticed I was referring of the average "joe" who has most of his 401K, IRA, etc. Timers are a 'class' by themselves and some a very succesfull. You were doing a little name dropping of famous investors - I doubt that it has any bearing on the topic at hand. Pro timers outperform the SP it's the dumb fund managers (who by the way buy and hold) who are underperforming the SP year after year. Timers use index funds and sectors - even the dumb fund managers can't screw up a sector fund too much. But if you have your ways set who am I to sway you. Buy on this dip and hold (but not too long