Regarding my post about gains vs. the market earlier, that should not be the only benchmark. Every situation is different. My risk vs. return profile has already shifted from beating the market to capital protection, by the way. To paraphrase something Barry Ritholtz said a while ago, that you can make a lot of money when the market is doing well doesn’t mean a damn thing if you lose it all when the market goes south.

I have shifted to a lot of cash, in other words, both in and out of my investment portfolio. I am willing to wait years for the deals to appear, and in some respects I already have. There is no rush. I am not emotionally involved and I know the present insanity cannot continue. Something that can’t continue, won’t. Investing based on your own emotion is the quickest way to lose all your money, by the way, and that is how the vast majority of people do it (even algorithms programmed by people do this).

That you cannot time the market is only true in the sense that you can’t completely gauge when the market is at its highest high or lowest low. This is correct. However, it’s a limited point intended to frighten the peons into not pulling their money out at the worst possible time. (I was literally begging a woman at work in late 2008 to leave her 401K and other money in the stock market at the time, and to invest more, as much as she could afford. She sold everything at a 65% haircut and likely will never be able to retire. She’s eternally much poorer because of it.)

This time is not different. The market will crash. The bulls will stampede off the cliff. Everyone will think it’s the end of the world and I will be at the bottom of the cliff harvesting the fresh meat.