rebounding at some time in the future or heading toward bankruptcy. Proponents of market timing counter that market timing is just another name for trading. They argue that "attempting to predict future market price movements" is what all traders do, regardless of whether they trade individual stocks or collections of stocks, aka, mutual funds. Thus if market timing is not a viable investment strategy, the proponents say, then neither is any of the trading on the various stock exchanges. Those who disagree with this view usually advocate a buy-and-hold strategy with periodic "re-balancing". Others contend that predicting the next event that will affect the economy and stock prices is notoriously difficult. For examples, consider the many unforeseeable, unpredictable, uncertain events between 1985 and 2013 that are shown in Figures 1 to 6 [pages 37 to 42] of Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty. Few people in the world correctly predicted the timing and causes of the Great Recession during 2007–2009. A 2004 study suggested that the best predictor of a fund's consistent outperformance of the market was low expenses and low turnover, not pursuit of a value or contrarian strategy. Several independent organizations (e.g., Timer Digest and Hulbert Financial Digest) have tracked some market timers' performance for over thirty years. These organizations have found that purported market timers in many cases do no better than chance, or even worse. See also In econometrics, a dynamic factor (also known as a diffusion index) were originally designed to help identify business cycle turning points. References External links Market-Timing Strategies that Worked Quandl Data on Estimated Long-Term Mutual Fund Flows Investment