The toughest thing about trying to time the markets is knowing when to buy and when to sell. Oh brother! Sound too obvious and therefore ridiculous? The easiest part is when one already has established a position. At that time, it becomes easy to rationalize one's point of view. There are charts, indicators, and many financial sites and blogs that have a multitude of opinions to reinforce the rationalization. But what happens when one wants to change course?
Changing course means that one has to disregard the previous rationalization. That's not so easy to do. One could convince oneself that the DOW is going to surge in the coming months and have memorized a laundry list of reasons why. But something changes. The sell signal comes. But how could a sell signal possibly come when there are a laundry list of reasons to support holding on?
That makes it tough to change course. When the course is changed, one has to create a new list of rationalizations to support that point of view that contradicts the previous list of rationalizations. On and on this goes. Then, when one of the signals misfires, the easiest thing to do is to say "Darn, I knew it!" and kick oneself for changing course when the previous line of reasoning and rationalizing was the right course after all!
After a few iterations of this, it can be very difficult to pull the trigger on a buy or sell signal. I try to minimize the second-guessing of myself. I accept that there will be times that I am completely wrong. I also be patient with my decisions when the market is indecisive and in a range, knowing that this can lead to frustration and emotion after a while of little action. I also limit my short-term trading calls and lean to intermediate-term calls which require patience. At least that's the plan.