I wish there was a way to help people understand how bad market timing is. No amount of explaining will help.

There is! :D

http://qz.com/487013/this-game-will-show-you-just-how-foolis...

It starts at a random point in the stock market over the last 10 years or so, and you get to sell once and buy once. I tried 3 or 4 times when I first found it and only beat the market once.

I did this as a Monte Carlo simulation on the Indian stock market and concluded actively managed funds and systematic investment plans are basically fleecing investors.

I subsequently only do passive index funds or buy options if I want to take a risk

Markets are very short-term, though, so you can time the market. It's just hard to time it exactly. All investors want to sell 5 minutes before the crash. It's impossible for a normal person. However, investors generally don't want to sell 5 months before the crash. On many occasions it has been widely known that something is a bubble, but people keep investing in that thing because they expect the bubble to grow a little more before it pops. If you're willing to watch the market grow for months after you've sold then I think it's possible to time the market.

This is not professional investment advice, btw. It's somewhat outside of orthodoxy. I would do my own research before trusting me.

This is simply not true. It is basically never widely known when there is a bubble, that is why there is a bubble. There are lots of false positives and false negatives.

No one has successfully timmed the market over a long period of time.