re: Timing the market

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Sure. But why do you believe this particular guess is an educated one? It seems pretty simplistic to me as technical analysis goes.

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I by no means think my simple little study was thorough enough to draw any concrete conclusions. But I think the simplicity of it, coupled with the enormous differential in gains is something to think about. I wouldn't find it far fetched that some average Joe trader has used such a strategy because of its simplicity, and yet he would've substantially outperformed many professionals. Sometimes the simplest of things can be the most telling.

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Why did you pick 1974 as the starting point? 

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That's an easy one, it's the furthest back Google finance would go . I just wanted to see how it would work over the longest possible timeframe.

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Does this method work in other periods also? 

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I would assume its massive outperformance is mainly due to 1987, 2001, and 2008, which were some of the largest market declines the market has ever seen. I noted that in my OP. Basically this strategy avoids the massive losses that happen during bubbles and such. And I also said I don't think it's far fetched to think we could see a couple more such bubbles over the next 40 years, which is why this strategy could possibly outperform the market in the future.

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What was the maximum loss during this time? Etc. etc. 

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Actually, I don't recall there ever being a time period of loss, maybe a couple of percentage points here and there but nothing substantial. Sure there were long stretches where zero gains were made, and even others where some gains were missed, but it was still a positive outcome because you avoided the huge losses. Simply because the 50 WK MA is still a very long time horizon, and the upward trajectory only broke a few times during the big bubble bursts. When the upward trajectory did break, you were able to get back in at a lower price point because of the huge market decline, thus increasing your gains.

I think over the whole 40 year period you would actually jump in and out only about 20 times. I need to look at my sheet for the exact number, but it wasn't a very consistent happening. Sometimes 5 to 6 years would go by before a move had to be made.

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ecause one thing's for sure - some bright young analyst at Goldman Sachs or the like did this analysis a long time ago.

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I'm sure of it, but I've never seen one published which is why I did it.