The market timing popularity cycle

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) � Does the average stock market timer have more ability than the typical gold market timer? Do bond market timers have any ability all?

Those questions, odd as they might otherwise seem, are prompted by the widely varying success rates of market timers in the stock, gold and bond arenas.

Over the last five years, for example, more than half the stock market timers tracked by The Hulbert Financial Digest have beaten a buy-and-hold strategy. In the gold market, in contrast, only 16% have�and in the bond market, none.