I’ve posted Entry #708 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Only a Combination of Fundamental and Technical Analysis Makes Complete Sense.

Juicy Excerpt: I completely agree with them that the guessing-game approach to market timing is a foolish endeavor. However, I am a strong proponent of valuation-based market timing. It drives me nuts that Buy-and-Holders act as if the two approaches to market timing are the same thing. They are not even a tiny bit the same thing. They are very, very different things.

I’ve posted Entry#707 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Recognizing That Some Stock Gains Are a Negative Requires a Big Psychological Shift.

Juicy Excerpt: Not all stocks gains are a positive. Shiller’s research shows that. But how many of us believe it today? Not very many.

I’ve posted Entry #706 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Bull Markets Are Hard to Pull Off.

Juicy Excerpt: Bull markets don’t just happen. It takes a lot of work to persuade stock investors that it’s okay to go along with the craziness that it takes to support a bull market.

I’ve posted Entry #705 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called The Paradoxes of Investor Emotion.

Juicy Excerpt: The problem is that, when people act on emotion, they are often not aware that that is what they are doing. No one says: “I bought my car because I fell in love with the color.” That sounds like a dumb thing to do. So we talk about how the car gets good gas mileage and performs well on safety tests and maintains a good resale value. Those things might well be so. But salespeople will tell you that often people fall in love with the look of a car and then look for rationalizations for their desire to purchase it and that the stated reasons for buying it are not necessarily the true motivators of the sale.

I’ve posted Entry #705 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Is Valuation-Based  Market Timing Really Market Timing?

Juicy Excerpt: The case for valuation-based market timing is so strong that I sometimes wonder if Buy-and-Holders are not thinking of valuation-based market timing when they advance statements opposing market timing. In fact, there have been many cases in which I have seen a Buy-and-Hold oppose market timing and then describe the problems with the guessing-game approach to market timing to explain the opposition. The Buy-and-Holder might point out that, for market timing to work, the investor needs to be right re both his guesses as to when to lower his stock allocation and when to increase it. That is of course so for guessing-game market timing but not for valuation-based market timing.

I’ve posted Entry #703 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called The Arc of History in Stock Investing Bends Toward Rationality.

Juicy Excerpt: Martin Luther King once argued that the ark of history bends toward justice. It’s not hard to imagine that there were times when he had to reassure himself that that was so just to continue on with the battles he was fighting. I believe that in the personal finance realm the way to think about it is that the arc of history bends toward rationality.

I have posted Entry #702 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called We Know Little About How Irrational Exuberance Works.

Juicy Excerpt: Irrational exuberance is a strange phenomenon. That word “irrational” is disturbing. Shiller was writing about stock investing in his book. The suggestion that you get just from reading the title of the book, let alone its words and pages and chapters, is that investors are committing self-harm by giving in to the power of this irrational exuberance phenomenon.

I’ve posted Entry #701 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called There Is Both Huge Support for and Huge Opposition to Valuation-Based Market Timing.

Juicy Excerpt: I won’t tell you what some of my critics have said about the concept because it would be just too darn upsetting and depressing. But please don’t think that there are not critics. There are lots and lots and lots of critics. I am a mild-mannered reporter. And I have been banned from more investing web sites than most people have visited. So this is not a thing where I can tell you that “50 Million Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong!”

I’ve posted Entry #700 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called Can Investors Be Both Rational and Emotional at the Same Time?

Juicy Excerpt: To persuade one’s self that history doesn’t matter is even a scarier possibility than acknowledging that today’s high stock prices are bad news for stock investors. If history doesn’t matter, then there is no sound reason to believe that stocks will offer strong returns on a going-forward basis. The historical record offers a discomforting message for those invested heavily in stocks today but a highly comforting message for those with a general preference for investing heavily in stocks.

I’ve posted Entry #699 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site, It’s called The Idea That Valuation-Based Market Timing Is Not Required Is Reinforced Each Time the Non-Adjusted Stock Price Is Quoted.

Juicy Excerpt: So it is a matter of some controversy whether that day’s price increase was indeed good news or not. A more fair journalistic account would have added “according to the Buy-and-Holders” following the claim that the day of price increases was “a good day.”