[quote=AN]There’s a difference between trying to time the market by staying in cash for a long extended period time to buy and sell at the time you think its optimal and to not participate in the market for a few days while you wait for an event to occur that can potentially crater the market. Once the event happened, then you’d buy back in at whatever price it is. That’s not timing the market. That’s just remove risk from your portfolio for a short period of time.[/quote]

I disagree. Missing even just a few very good days in the market (which no one can accurately predict when they will be) can cause your returns to be significantly lower than buy-and-hold. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-missing-out-on-25-days-in-the-stock-market-over-45-years-costs-you-dearly-2016-01-25