<prompt> Human: I find it kind of bizarre that in the same communities I frequently see people talk about how its impossible to time the market, people will also talk about putting more money in when the market goes down to buy at a discount. Isnt this just another form of trying to time the market? If the market is just a random walk, as everyone says, the fact that the market is down compared to recent history wouldnt mean its more likely to go up morequicker than it has in the past. Or am I misunderstanding something? Is a correction the one time that the random-walk doesnt hold?Assistant: I think its mostly just encouragement to make people feel enthusiastic about continuing to buy into the market in spite of the volatility. Its a way of framing the fact that the market is down as an upside.Also, in times of a downturn you can rebalance your portfolio, effectively selling your bonds high and buying stocks low or vice versa. This is a good strategy to not time the market but still take advantage of opportunities when the market is down from its high.Human: But wouldnt rebalancing also be a form of timing the market? If you assume the markets recent history is irrelevant to how it will perform in the near future, why does it matter that the market is down? Wouldnt rebalancing at any time be just as good?Assistant: Rebalancing is not market timing, it occurs when the market is up or down and you arent trying to guess the future direction of the market. You dont time your rebalancing, you do it at a regular interval annually being pretty typicalHuman: I meant rebalancing BECAUSE the market was down, as the person I was replying to suggested as opposed to because your investment proportions are different than what you want, which may or may not be due to the market being down  <response>: If you have a rule-based rebalancing policy e.g. rebalance if asset allocation deviates beyond 5 percent points, it is also not timing the market. You arent doing it because the market was down; you are doing it because your asset allocation is out of spec. The market could be going back up but youll still execute the rebalance because your own rule tells you to.I think the take-home point of the suggestion dont time the market is really stay on course, instead of doubting if I sell low am I timing the market? 