Years ago I thought I could time the market. I'm not sure what it is about people that makes them think they know something everyone else doesn't. It's a curious thing, but I guess that's part of what makes the stock market interesting.

So during my days of attempting to time the market, I often used exchange traded funds (ETFs). I chose those because their price wasn't too dependent on a single company's performance and they were highly liquid with small spreads. And you know what? I sometimes was successful in making a profit. But at the time everything was going up so I was really just lucky rather than skillful.

Know what else? A good chunk of what moves the stock market up for a given period of time happens over the course of just a few days here and there. It's impossible to be in an ETF during these small pockets and out of them at all other times. What is more likely is that you'll get in at the end of a pocket, miss out on the gains, and then decide to sell before the next spike up. Not really a good way to make money.