looking for basic info.

dog, I think you need to figure out when you need the money, how much you'll need, what kind of risks you want to take, your tax situation, all sorts of things that are infinitely more important than trying to time the market. You need to do some reading. I recommend Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", Bogle's "Bogle on Mutual Funds", Graham and Dodd's "Security Analysis", and Larry Swedroe's two books. There are some good sites. www.indexfunds.com, www.efficientfrontier.com, www.diehards.org, etc. All these folks emphasize using cheap, passively-managed mutual funds/index funds and assert that your asset allocation between stocks/bond/cash determines the vast majority of your returns. I envy your problem since I am not awash in cash but I will stay the course and hope it turns around sometime between now and 2030 when I'll really need the cash. Good luck.