[quiet investor]

NewMoney,

I think that it is very hard to try and time the cyclical moves in the economy. However, I am wrestling with this question also. I feel that
a cyclical bear market would tend to pull down even undervalued stocks because some people would have to cover margin calls on their other over-valued stocks. I'm thinking that if, and that's a big "if", one can call the general area of a cyclical bear market top in the overall market then one might hop out for 3 months or so and enter back in at a better price. There are tax implications to consider also. You can also consider buying puts on an index such as SPY to hedge. If you don't buy on margin it really shouldn't matter at all to ride out a cyclical bear market if you are holding for value and your time horizon is at least 3 years, preferrably 5. I do think that most cyclical bear markets occur because the Fed decides to slow down the economy because of inflation concerns and changes monetary policy towards tightening. That last string of Fed rate hikes was just to normalize rates not to slow an economy growing above a non-inflationary rate. A recession occuring outside of a Fed tightening is unlikely in my humble opinion. I'm not an economist so I hope you take my words with a grain of salt. I would definately ask NPG for his thoughts. They are quite sound.