Subject: Re: Chart: timing with Nas100 RS screen
Am I reading the graph correctly? If your start was anytime other that ~2H00 to ~2H08, Untimed gives the better return?

So, basically, this would have helped one miss the dot com and financial crisis busts (which ain't nothing), but other than that, worse?

Yes.

People think the purpose of timing is to improve the return. When they find it does not, they say "timing the market does not work".

But that is NOT the purpose of timing.
Going back at least to the 2013 Mel Faber paper, the purpose of timing is to reduce the standard deviation (volatility) at the cost of reducing the overall return. The win is if timing reduces the stdev percentage-wise more than it reduces the return percentage-wise.

The other win is "avoiding the full brunt of a large decline."

2/1985-12/2025
Untimed:
CAGR      22.9%
Stdev     30.2%
MaxDD(12) -66%
Sortino   1.35

Timed (65 week SMA of SPX):
CAGR      22.6%
Stdev     26.1%
MaxDD(12) -33%
Sortino   1.63