"The third year of the Presidential cycle has historically been the most profitable year of the cycle in terms of stock market performance," says market historian and money manager Jim Stack.

The editor of InvesTech Market Analyst explains, "This third year of the four-year cycle is often characterized by an accommodative Fed policy, and usually accompanied by a stable and growing economy.

"Characteristically, most of the third year gains come in the first half of the year where the first and second quarters are among the strongest in the entire cycle.

Well, it's time to own up to some mistakes. I've been wrong on a few stocks. Sure, the market has been volatile, and perhaps my ideas will eventually bear fruit, but it doesn't matter. When you're timing is off, it's off. And I've got to admit it.

Where shall I begin? Let's go with Disney (DIS). I've been bullish on Disney. Like many of the analysts on Wall Street, I became infatuated with the prospects for the Mouse's studio operations. A little too infatuated, I think. I kept throwing around this $40 personal price target. My rationale? Perhaps it turned out to be too simplistic; I basically said that, because Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Toy Story 3 were all ready to reign supreme at the box office, traders would become excited and more than willing to fulfill the promise of the one-year chart and keep the technicals moving in a positive direction.

"The market's seasonal effects have been nothing short of phenomena; for six decades, if you invested money only during the months from November through April, you made lots of money," says Alan Newman.

In a review of "seasonal market timing", the editor of CrossCurrent explains, "If you instead invested money only during the months from May through October, you lost money. You heard that right. Over a period measuring six decades, you would have lost money.

"The statistics represent far and away the most significant dichotomy ever seen in stock investing. If you invested $10,000 in the Dow from November through April, you'd have almost $517,000 now, an annualized rte of gain of 14.1%.

"In our latest report, we review the Four-Year Presidential Cycle, and the fact that we are still in the usually dangerous first two years of the current cycle," notes Sy Harding, a market timer who specializes in seasonal trading patterns.

The editor of Street Smart Report explains, "A few observations are in order given the current high level of bullish and complacent investor sentiment, and the market's overbought technical condition.

"Since at least 1917, each administration has almost always allowed the correction of any excesses in the economy and stock market to take place in the first or second year of their four-year term.

"The conditions are in place for a 'Best Buy' opportunity," says Jim Stack, whose buy signal should receive special attention give the accuracy of his sells signals which side-stepped the bear market.

In addition, the money manager and editor of Investech Market Analyst is beginning to increase his equity positions, such as Nike (NYSE: NKE). He states, "With a portfolio of iconic brands, an identified growth strategy, recognized innovation, and sound financial footing, Nike fits the bill of being a great company."

"Very rarely do we have all these conditions in place – that's only occurred five times in the last 45 years. Historically, this means we should give the growing evidence of a new bull market every benefit of doubt.

"The Fed lowered interest rates more than expected and in a way that has Wall Street talking; in fact, the stock market is setting up a potentially bullish technical formation," technician Mark Leibovit, editor of Volume Reversal Survey -- often ranked among the top performing market timing services.

He reports, "The market expected a 50 basis point cut to 0.5% with a chance of a 75 bp cut to 0.25%. Some even called for a rate of 0%. The Fed made a lot of people happy, though a bit confused, by lowered the Fed Funds rate target to a range of 0% to 0.25%.

"This is the first time the Fed has lowered rates to a range instead of a an actual number. It also bring the Fed Funds rate to its lowest target rate ever. The Fed also pledged to use "all available tools" to combat a severe financial crisis and prolonged recession. The stock market likes the lower interest rate and the Dow is up 360 points, the S&P is up 44 and the NASDAQ is up 81.

"As I write, all nine market sectors are trading higher, led by Financials which are up 9.8%. Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) is up 17.2% after reporting its first quarterly loss as a public company.

Normally, I'm the kind of person who thinks it's ridiculous when investors sell in a bear market. I didn't flinch when the dot-come bubble burst, or in the downturn after the terrorist attacks. But this time is different.

In January, I pulled back my stock holdings to the low end of the asset allocation models. In the last couple weeks as the credit crunch unfurled while I was on vacation in Canada with my husband, I looked for an up day in the market to sell. On Friday, I cut our stock holdings in our regular and retirement accounts by about one-third.

On Friday afternoon I completely expected the market Monday to rise on word of a successful bailout. I warned my husband that there would certainly be a rally when the deal was approved and we would lose out. Boy, did that turn out not to be the case. It still may happen, but I really doubt it will completely erase Monday's loss.

Friday wasn't even my first choice for a sell date. As I said, we were traveling and the two other times I wanted to sell, we couldn't get a secure internet connection in time.

I still don't believe I've timed this perfectly. You just can't. If I had timed it perfectly I would've taken everything out of stocks last October. I could have saved around 20-30% of my holdings with that. And I'm absolutely certain that I won't jump back in at exactly the right time. I know the market lurches up in big jumps.

But I don't need to get it 100% right to save myself some money. When the market has been up lately, it's been on that crazy market wisdom that, 'Yeah! A bailout plan is coming!' But the big picture is still bad news: A bailout is needed and even it may not work.

Sy Harding, long-known for his work in cycle analysis, takes a look at the history of Presidential Election Cycle and what this portends for the next few years.

Interestingly, he explains how and why this cycle will impact the direction of the stock market in coming years regardless of which candidate becomes the country's next President. Here's his long-term assessment from his Street Smart Investing.

"As Paul Harvey once said, 'In times like these it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.' Yet the world hardly ever comes to an end. The future arrives. The cycles continue. Sunny weather still follows stormy weather, winter still follows summer, spring still follows winter -- every time.

"For investors there's nothing more important than recognizing that business, the economy, and markets also move in cycles, not endless straight lines. Recessions follow boom times, bear markets follow bull markets, bull markets follow bear markets -- every time.

"There are two cycles, one of intermediate-term duration, the other longer-term, which can be of significant importance to investors. The first is the annual seasonal cycle.

This is part of a series of columns by retirement expert Dan Solin. Please bring him your questions in the comments box and he will answer as many as he can.

Is this a good time to invest, or should you sit on the sidelines until the market has "bottomed out"? This is the most common question I am asked.

It would be great if there was a way to tell when the market had reached its low. If you could do this, you would be able to buy stocks when the markets were taking off and retreat to risk-free investments, like cash and Treasury bills, in down markets.

Unfortunately, the data on timing the markets is very dismal.

One large study looked at more than 15,000 predictions by 237 market timing newsletters over a 12-year period. At the end of the period studied, 94.5% of the newsletters went bust. Not very impressive.

The financial media likes to hype stories suggesting that the markets are tanking or are poised for a rebound. These predictions are usually inaccurate and generally unreliable.

Here's a better question for you to consider: Should you be in the markets at all?

Using a proprietary "volume reversal" trading strategy, Mark Leibovit has been consistently ranked among the top newsletter timers. In his VRTrader, he looks at the outlook for stocks, oil, gold & silver -- and offers his choice for exchange-traded funds for traders to play these markets.

Leibovit explains, "The stock market's decline, besides being huge, is relentless. Every rally was met with selling and fresh lows were soon hit. The Dow crashed through the March and January lows and is now trading at its lowest level since September 2006.

"Apparently, that 1500 point rally off the March low was just a giant head fake. The Dow is now down 19% since last October and the S&P is down 18%, approaching bear market territory."

"Breadth is dismal, and down volume is ten times greater than up volume. Sector action is terrible. Seven of the nine market sectors are down more than 2.5%. Ouch! Financials have done it again and have set a new five-year low. Oil spiked through previous records setting a new record high.

"The precious metals also showed strong gains today with gold up 32.80 to 915.10. We cleared the June 9th high of 907.20 touching 909.50 opening up potential to 931.00 (May 21 high).

"Gloom is thick enough to cut with a knife," says market historian and seasonal timing expert Sy Harding, whose timing system has just triggered a new intermediate-term buy signal on stocks. Here, in his Street Smart Report, the contrarian explains why he believes we are now near a market low.

He also looks at four new ETF index positions he has established in his portfolio. "The slowdown continues. Foreclosures soar. Debt problems are spreading to corporate and credit card loans. The housing collapse continues. The problems are affecting employment.

"And of course the credit crunch continues. Gasoline hit a record high $3.26 a gallon last week. Consumer confidence, and corporate CEO confidence is at multi-year lows regarding the economy.

"The gloom and doom has spread from financial publications to local newspapers and magazines, now featuring stories of layoffs and local plant closings, local small businesses suffering, comparisons to previous bad times, even occasionally to the Great Depression.

"Is the gloom thick enough? Are other conditions in place indicating we are near a market low? Here's why we think so:

Jim Rohrbach, a top timer for over three decades -- and one who successfully side-stepped the recent decline -- just issued a buy signal for the NYSE in his Investment Models.

"I am a mechanical investor. Each day my proprietary RIX indicator converts the stock market action into numbers that represent the trend of the market. These numbers then trigger buy or sell signals for the NYSE and the Nasdaq. It's that simple.

"And because the readings are mathematical, there is subjective interpretations. No guessing, no predicting, and no anticipating. I never try to out-guess my strategy. I act on every signal, without question, because I know that over the past 36 years I have caught every major up move and I have avoided every major decline.

"Big up moves do not come very frequently, so you have to take advantage of it by staying in the market until it peaks and turns down. I am going 100% invested today. I believe that the market can give us a nice up move from here.

The Wall Street Journal's "Ahead of the Tape" column looks at (subscription required) one of the age-old market-timing indicators: the election year.

Conventional wisdom holds that election years are a good time to buy stocks because incumbents hoping to hold on to power, for themselves or their party's successor, will try to win voters' favor with fun things like tax cuts and spending to give the economy an upward jolt.

Conversely, politicians usually save things like tax hikes for their first two years in office, hoping we'll forget about it by the time election year rolls around.

The Journal argues that the subprime meltdown and general housing turmoil could make the election indicator less reliable this year. "Investors should also keep in mind the one time in the last half century the presidential cycle didn't work: 2000, when the dot-com stock bubble imploded. No amount of fiscal stimulus could stave off that bear market. It remains to be seen if Washington's pump-priming machine will work this time around."

Markets are too complex to use any one indicator -- no matter how impressive its past performance -- to try to jump in and out of the market. It's been said many times before, but most investors should just buy and hold and pay no attention to the election year indicator, the Super Bowl indicator, or anything else.

A piece in The Wall Street Journal laments that the day to day gyrations of the market are hard to predict. Duh. Furthermore, the methods that once appeared to be effective in making predictions no longer work. Double-duh.

It's an interesting piece, and a good one, focused on the role that hedge funds may be playing in increasing market volatility. The problem is this: who really cares? According to some, days where 90% of shares traded in the same direction, was a good indicator of a bottom:

"This used to be a good signal of a major bottom," says Tim Hayes, Ned Davis's chief investment strategist. "Now, it could be turning into a signal of the end of a less-significant market correction -- or it could be turning into an inconsistent signal" that simply means investors are anxious

Well wasn't that enlightening?

There have been very few market prognosticators, and not enough to make me think it's anything other than luck, who have correctly predicted the markets swings over an extended period of time. Does any of this volatility matter for the long-term investor? No, and the long-term investor is the only one who's likely to do well over the long-term.

So sit back, dollar-cost average, and count on the long-term growth of the economy for long-term returns. And don't pay attention to investment strategists who use the word could twice in the same sentence.

Timing expert Jim Rohrbach, who successfully side-stepped the recent market decline, has just issued a buy signal for the NYSE in his Investment Models newsletter.

To assess what the market is doing, Rohrbach has been compiling an indicator -- known as the RIX -- every day for 36 years. Via this system, he has garned one of the top reputations in among timers.

His latest sell signal came on July 25, and since that time, the market declined some 900 points. His system has now issued a buy signal for the NYSE, and he has now moved to a 100% invested position.

Although the actual data used in compiling his RIX indicator is proprietary, he does notes that it coverts the action of the stock market into a specific number that identifies the changes in the market's trend. Whatever its makeup, the RIX has caught most of the major market moves of the past three decades.

Concerning his latest buy, he notes, "I wasn't too crazy about getting in on this signal because I was hoping that the market would sustain a larger loss. But, I never try to out-guess the strategy. I am a mechanical investor. I act on every signal, without question."

Each day, Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com features the latest investment ideas and market commentary from the financial newsletter community.