A simulation over 40 years shows that consistent, automatic investing ($200/month regardless of market conditions) yielded the highest returns ($1.386 million) compared to worst-case timing ($663,000) and perfect timing ($956,000), highlighting the inefficiency of market timing.
"over 40 years for 96 000 investment turned into a 663 thousand dollar mini fortune at the same time we also have Brittany who had the best Market timing in the world she saved her money and invested it all precisely at the bottom of every single crash even though it would have been virtually impossible to perfectly time the market like she did down to the exact day her 96 000 investment turned into a 956 thousand dollar amount today and then we had the slow and steady Sarah all she does is set 200 a month to be automatically invested in the stock market regardless of where it's trading and guess what after 40 years she has one million three hundred and eighty six thousand dollars"