Value investing is all about timing

Graham and Dodd’s statement, “It is our view that stock market timing cannot be done...” However, less well-known is the fact that he continues this sentence, “with general success, unless the time to buy is related to an attractive price level, as measured by analytical standards. Similarly, the investor must take his cue to sell primarily not from so-called technical market signals but from an advance in the price level beyond a point justified by objective standards of value.”

- from James Montier Behavioral Investing 

A recurring theme in value investing is that you have to be a market timer. You have to time when assets are cheap and buy. Now the timing the market as whole is difficult. Timing an individual asset or stock may be easier. It is all about the margin of safety. There should be a greater margin of safety with a single assets than a aggregation of assets. 

Everything associated with money management should be associated with finding and exploiting some measure of value. The definition of value may be unclear, but the focus is is clear. Buy cheap assets and that usually means when others do not want them. Perhaps best is to buy cheap assets that are starting to trend higher because then market sentiment is turning in value of the value investor.