[Perfectlap]

^ Sounds like the Mark Cuban approach. He says 'buy and hold is for morons'.
He says he's all cash and only buys when the market has taken a severe beating. Then when everyone thinks its nothing but blue skies he sells and is back in all cash.

I would agree that the concept of "dollar cost averaging" is very suspect on a return basis, and coupled with a "long only" mentality (too many average investors never take money off the table after stellar years like 2013) it does set up a situation where its like sheep to the slaughter. But at the end of the day you ultimately have to believe that when share prices simply get too cheap, the deep pockets will almost assuredly always come in to scoop up fire sale prices. Except it's not just U.S. investors doing this now, it's a whole international pool of new investors as well. The same ones who are boosting real estate prices in big markets like NYC and Miami. It would have to be a really insane set of conditions, all happening at once to keep the investor away for good. Even a spectacular $20 trillion debacle, enough to buy and destroy China three times over, like in 2008 only saw a less than one year period before the reversal was firmly in place. Maybe the next collapse will take two years to recover from, but I sometimes wonder what it would have to take to keep them all way forever. I think aliens would have to come from another planet.