Understand Stock Market Timing

The more advice we hear against timing the stock market, the more we want to beat the street by timing the stock market. Well let me say again -- stock market timing without proper information is impossible. The market makers and institutional investors that seem to win all the time aren't better than you in understanding stock market timing. They cheat.

What you should learn is timing the institutional investors. That's how to understand stock market timing. With that in mind, here's how to understand stock market timing.

1. To understand stock market timing, learn when big meetings take place. Learn when earnings reports come out, learn when big meetings are taking place, learn when merger talks are getting serious. All these things can be found easily with Yahoo Finance.

   The left menu bar contains all the above information, and the news feed, though late, is at least accurate. (You want to get news before the stock market opens, though, from an online newspaper.)
   

2. For stocks you like (or dislike if you're shorting), it's very important to listen to their investor calls, and Yahoo Finance is also a great place to go for that. They have a schedule of events for every company, and during these talks, questions are asked that people can't avoid. Combine this live knowledge with the news feed to make a decision on whether a stock will rise or fall in the short term.

3. To understand stock market timing, understand the forces that are outside the control of even the market makers. Holiday seasons, massive frauds, and physical disasters are things that even the market makers can't predict.

   At this point, they'll be as rocked as you. Use this time to get into the undervalued stocks of good companies. Play off of the fear of the big guys, and let them catch up to you as things calm down. If you're really good, you can also short their fear and make money on the way down, too. Good luck.