Ray Dalio market cycle template is pretty good to understand which economic cycles we are in at the moment.

As nobody can really timed exactly a market crash, you can try to be defensive while still having money on the table by buying into stable dividend yielding stocks or relatively medium risk bonds or FD.

China still has pretty big risk, and it's future deleveraging may pull all other asian country into it's mix.

If you have been staying in the sideline since 1 year ago then your patience is likely to be rewarded with buying opportunity coming up in the next 6 to 12 coming months

To really enter a bear market you will need two factor. Pessimism and fundamentals to backup the pessimism.

There has been many sell off since 08 in the past due to negative news eg brexit, greece default, rate hike etc. But so far all those sell off later rebounded and achieve all time high again due to earning reports showing good result.

But this round is different as i think by 6 /12 months in you will see the full effect of the trade wars in earning reports. This kind of bad fundamental would likely tipped the market over to an official bear territory

The true trade war effects is not in the country numbers as per the article highlight. You need to look at how people will behave. When the media served as a scarecrow, and the situation played out is relatable to the general public, eg loss of job, slow down in orders, loss of contract etc. Even how small these impact really is, there is a likelihood it will set of a chain of larger effect, eg people will start delaying purchase of luxury items, a loss in appetite for further business capital investment, slow down in hiring etc. When all this come together, you will see in hard figure the economy has slowed and the future 6 / 12 months corporate earnings will reflect this. By that time stocks will be cheap, and if you have cash there is bound to be good bargain.

That said, my portfolio is still 70% in stocks, and i don't plan to withdraw it. To time the market is almost impossible, so for now i'm planning to limit my participation in the market until i see improving outlook on the company financials and that optimism for global growth is back on the table.

So many experienced and proven investors has express their view that the valuation is extremely high and what the world did after 08 - massive global QE is unprecedented and by logic is not sustainable. This create the effect of massive increase in Asset Value as compared to yield. Which create this super big gap between rich and poor as rich get richer, cause the rich hold a lot of Assets which are now highly valued.

However many that have this view like Charlie Munger still has their feet in the water, because they just don't know when the music will stop or how this new QE and printing money dynamic will play out. And of all low yield item, stock is still the best place to be optimistic about i guess.

But then we just beat out the 90s - 00s dot com bubble bull run. So if history repeat itself there is a possibility we get wiped out 50 - 70% of our portfolio value especially on hot stock like the FANG gang. That is a scary possibility haha.

During the dot-com era, profitable and high growth company like Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Oracle are all HOT stock that saw many of their value wipe out as well. But then their PE was even crazier back then. The difference is they survive and continue to grow.

But during the high confidence dot com time, many loss making tech company also has great valuation despite loss making. Much like the case of our ubers now. But sadly, people thought the dot.com bubble is all about not profitable company with a .com site. It's actually just a case of over confidence and non-realistic future expectation of the market.

It has happen, during the height of dot com a lot of stable high profile tech stock had also enter people life like our current FANG. Eg Microsoft, Cisco, Ebay, Yahoo etc.

The crash also wipe off a big chunk of share holder value despite some of these company having good fundamentals such as income and revenue growth. But if you buy company with good fundamentals, you can rest easy that a market crash won't kill them and their value will likely recover in the long term. But still a 30 - 70% dent on your portfolio value will send you into panic and make irrational decision.

It's very hard to timed the market.

The best is picture in your mind what you think this company / asset is worth and is the market price today priced much lower than your valuation or much higher ? This will be able to guide your investment decision. Use metrics like what Boon mentioned to help you make an informed decision.

US equities market valuation is high but i'm not divesting any of my equities portfolio in favour for cash, as cash not put to work is always unproductive. As long as the company you hold is fundamentally strong, they could weather recession / crash. The worst case is you bought into stocks like enron, lehman, which has underlying issues. This is where your research comes into play.

Kinda out of topic, but for those with cash on the sideline, i think local property especially on secondary market has pretty good bargain now. This could perhaps keep your cash busy for another 1 - 2 years while valuations come down to a level that you feel has good bargains.

Are you trading or investing. Weaving in and out is bad, especially if you are planning to grow your money with a long term horizon

The more decision you made, the more likely it could lead to a mistake due to your impulse and emotions. Fear / Greed etc

Also you are paying a lot of micro fees, those add up over the long term.

Don't timed the market. That is what i learn from this decade long bull run. As you don't know when it might end, the opportunity cost might out weight years of lost earnings as cash itself is not really productive especially at ultra low savings rate.

Stay vested, buy company that has good growth. If you rely on the market for active income then buy established company that generate positive cash flow and give it back via dividend
The dividend you earn can either be accumulated as capital to deploy when a company stock become attractive or other asset become attractive due to crash / correction.

During the initial trade war period, i was having a tug of war between divesting all my equities stake into cash or just stay put. I choose to just hold all my stock and not invest any further. In the end the decision turn out ok i guess. The stock value went up during the course from 2018 - 2020 with some minor corrections along the way such as the 2018 december sell of. During the sell off i increase some of my stake while still keeping majority of new income/dividend handed out in cash as many company valuation were still high.

During 2019 - 2020 as bursa tumble and some fundamentally strong company become really attractive i deploy most of my cash on hand into beaten up counter as well as actual properties. The rest i put in safe haven assets such as gold, usd,sgd to hedge. Will come back after 2 year to see if the move is correct.

In the end i set a rule is always be in the market. Don't chase the high and it's impossible to know when it's the lowest. Just buy when you think the valuation make sense.

Very much depend on your time horizon. I saw you mentioned, you measure it in weeks / days. Then maybe your in & out strategy may yield result.

But for 2008 case, taking the US market as an example. If you are not highly leverage, and did not sell any in 2008. You would have recover all by end 2009. That is just one year in lost earning / negative territory. Just imagine you stay away from 2016 - 2020. How much lost earning and unproductive years your cash might have been to just wait the "perfect opportunity" for maximum efficiency.

haha there is a very valuable lesson here. Choosing the right company beat all else. Like buffett said when the tide goes out, you will know who is swimming naked.

A strong company always recover pretty fast after a crisis, while those with bad fundamental like lehman / enron may even go bust. Some trade sideways for a very long time eg Yahoo after 00s.

I also don't know my portfolios are winner or potato as now its all nice and good. A crash will prove it

Even market down, sometime no guts to buy lol.

Prepare for so long, when everyone pessimistic you also not sure when is the bottom.

Hoho, its green again.

I think the real threats is when this virus reveal some structural problem in certain business operations. Eg zombie company that is non profitable and rely on cheap credit to stay afloat.

Once those start to default, only we will see a real pull back of market valuations.

2 months of GDP contraction only official recession is announced was it ? If i remember correctly.

With the amount of money and instrument deploy by fed, i expect other central banks to mimic as well.

With such a fast plunge, there is a posibility that a fast snap back might happen. You see china case with the virus, even if other countries are less efficient, we should expect sentiment to recover fairly fast.

This might be the time to finally deploy your reserve haha

I'm thinking this is the new norm with new generation market participant. Eg Tesla

This is the new generation investing cycle. Quick boom / bust. Even central bank responses has also become so fast.

Based on 08 drop, maybe still got 20% more to go ?

Things move really fast nowadays. 2 week ago there is a fear of liquidity crisis. This week the focus will be where the easy money going into and how fast will int get absorb into the system.

Will they go into fixed asset or will they go into equities and riskier assets

New bottom / buy indicator. When glove sector move below their 200sma its the signal for me to go in the market again.

Now just riding the up wave with good companies pickup from the march rout. Any extra all goes into cash for now.