[gvhst]

Buffett puts this well when he says:

> “Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold. When downpours of that sort occur, it's imperative that we rush outdoors carrying washtubs, not teaspoons. And that we will do.”

The thing here is you have to be confident in your ability to deploy capital during those downturns. Your average expected return over multiple cycles (cash returns mid/late cycle + opportunistic investments beginning of cycle) needs to be higher than broad equity returns.

[mastratton3]

^This.. I don't see why people thinking hoarding cash when capital is cheap is a bad strategy. It totally ignores the fact that ease of raising and cost of capital is time dependent. If you had a war chest of cash in 2008/2009, that'd be insanely valuable.

[ptr]

On the other hand, that's timing the market. But as the common wisdom goes, time in market pays better. Or does it? Do these companies know something that we don't? Is it different when you have piles of money?