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Come on dude you are being obtuse. If the war ends I will immediately sell the oil stocks and get back into index funds. At most I've lost out on a couple percent of gains. The index funds are already down a couple points since I sold, so at worst it'll be a wash. I was going to sell most of my index funds at some point anyway, as they are way too heavily invested in NVIDIA and tech in general, and I want to rebalance away from that.
During the pandemic there was plenty of time to buy during the dip when it was clear that things were going back up. It's not that hard to time the market, it's hard to make max profits.
You are assuming you will make it on time to the sell button after you read the headlines, meanwhile Jane Street has already sold them all down three days in advance after having already predicted the end of the war.
If oil stocks and index funds start moving in uncorrelated directions you stand to lose a lot more than a couple percent.
Easy to say in hindsight, but if you missed the window by even one month you were pretty much just re-buying into Jan-Feb 2020 prices anyways, and if you missed the window by even two months you would have lost money.
At the end of the day it's your money, so do as you please with it - just realize that historically these sorts of bets have been horrific for the people trying to implement them.
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Market Timers;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
You're not doing anyone any favors here.
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