I do not bring this story up to pat myself on the back. I have also made some very bad calls. I favored Bear Stearns, now a part of JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) six months prior to its collapse not understanding the monumental leverage and miscalculations of risk the company had been thriving on. And in hindsight, it still boggles my mind that the titans of Wall Street were so extremely stupid as a group. This level of disbelief is one of the major factors that lead many investors astray.

Try as they might to add some level of predictability to the subject of economics there is just no comparing it to physics, chemistry or engineering. Economists and investment advisers have such an inconsistent track record that they cannot agree on how we got into the mess we are in or how to get out of it. The markets often resemble, or in the eyes of many simply are huge casinos where large bets are made every day, often with far less regulation than Las Vegas casinos.

So while investing may be part science and part art, it also involves timing and luck. Luck being that element of data operating for you or against you, but entirely unknown to you at the time you place your wager.

When it comes to specifics about investing, opinions vary about what the best strategy is. However, there are general principals that do work consistently. While it is often told as a joke that the secret of the market is to buy low and sell high -- this actually is the main point. How to do that is the struggle.

Stock pickers will be nay sayers in general, but large index funds will beat 80% of the stock pickers most of the time, at a lower cost. For most investors beating 80% of the gurus should be satisfactory. Exchange traded funds (ETF) can also be used.

Dollar cost averaging also helps smooth out the bumps and does indeed force you to buy less shares when the market is up and more shares when the market is down, actually buying low and if you need the money selling higher.

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money. Disclosure: I own options in C and JPM.