Stocks go up and down. There's opportunity in that, but long-term investors have to resist the temptation to time markets and stocks with the hope of benefiting specifically from price swings. A better approach is to build a portfolio from the bottom up with a variety of stocks that can, on the whole, provide consistent results over time. That makes the better question to ask pretty obvious: How can you build that ideal portfolio?

A lot of Wall Street experts get famous because they manage to pick a market turning point. They are hailed, for a time, as gurus, and their words are splashed across websites, newspapers, and television. More often than not their "hot hands" prove temporary as they miss the next turning point. Simply put, it is just about impossible to consistently pick out market bottoms and/or tops. 

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Source Fool.com