You have asked a valid question, so I will answer it to the best of my abilities. You have also awakened a sleeping Cackling U-man that rises at 11:09AM and taps out his denouncements over his bowl of breakfast porridge.
To explain my statement that there is nothing sure about the stock market, what I mean is that a stock that has went up will not necessarily keep going up. The market conditions and demand determine the price. On the matter of market timing. it all depends on your definition of market timing. If you have the skills and ability to use the moving average price of a stock you can more accurately predict the price direction. There are other ways to gain insight into market conditions, one of them is to be aware of financial and political events that influence the markets.
Am I a billionaire. I am not. I am merely a person that is able to use tools to gain insight into the financial markets. There is a term that has been used by the financial investment community. That term is " unsophisticated investor " This term refers to investors that have little or no ability or experience to make the best choices. These people usually buy GICs or ETFs, or they will buy a stock blindly not knowing if they are buying in high or low. An example of this is when a unsophisticated investor buys CTC.A ( Canadian Tire ) Using the logic that Cdn. Tire is across the country and sell the goods that people need in every day living. If this is sound logic then CTC.A will make you a profit every day. The successful investor has a strategy and knows how to read the markets. He has to be aware of environmental, political, and economic condition. The big banks and financial institutions buy when they estimate a stock to be below market value and sell when it is over valued. People have speculated that banks and financial institutions make as much as 300 - 500% on the money you deposit with them. Then they pay you a measly 5.5% annually. How else could they afford their big downtown buildings, multiple branches and thousands of employees. It is not enough to predict if a stock is going to rise, you also have to know at what point it will fall n price and take advantage of the high and lows.
Raj,
While I am right more often then I am wrong, that is all I need to show a profit. You are not the first Cackling U-man to show up to cast aspersions. One cackler that claimed to be the owner of high rise buildings and had a huge portfolio claimed to make 18% in two years, when in fact he lost 18%. Shall I send you to live with him in Cackler Shitty? You have cackled me more than once. Show me you are not simply a sack of fart gas. Let us see if you have the slightest ability or if you are only able to make feeble brapping sounds. Pick five stocks and show me you are not a loud mouth U-man that wakes at 11:09 every morning. Those that can do, those that can't cackle.