We can only try to hit a median point, but expect individuals to adjust either way to suit their personal situations. In fact, as our newsletter and home page states, it is each subscriber's responsibility to decide which, if any of our recommendations are suitable for their personal situation, and in what manner to use the information. Being in the market only six months each year would have a tax penalty for some investors. Whether that penalty would be serious enough to offset the benefit of tripling the Dow over the long term, but paying the tax bill as we go, rather than letting the tax bill accumulate, is difficult to determine in a manner satisfactory to everyone. So we don't try.
Tax rates vary dramatically depending on an investor's tax bracket.
Some states impose additional state taxes on capital gains to widely varying degrees. We live in New Hampshire and Florida, neither of which has state income taxes at all. Further, Congress changes the tax holding periods and capital gains rates so frequently as to make it difficult to back test an after-tax performance, and impossible to predict what it would be in the future. However, we can know seasonal timing would have no tax impact on assets in tax deferred plans like IRAs, 401Ks, Keough plans, etc. Nor would it have any impact on those already following a strategy of mutual fund switching, or of making portfolio changes to follow changes in market leadership.