If your invested in an index ETF, it's how much time you're invested in the market, and not how you time when you're out of the market. Being always heavily invested in equities has always done better than maintaining a silly 60/40 bond / equity ratio. Even at high interest rates we see today, fixed term payments rarely outperform the index returns. Take it from a business point of view, no person in business is interested in operating with a 5% profit margin. Over the long term business try to achieve over double digits.