Almost no one has the stomach to buy when equities are crashing and everyone around is panic selling.

Except perhaps for the people who avoided the crash and subsequent panic to begin with. Speaking for myself I'd be down right giddy if I managed to go to 80% cash and the market then went on to crash. Besides by definition in order to have a sale you need a buyer and who better to buy than someone with lots of cash. So someone does have the "stomach"; no? :<)
- rjf53

You and I have a similar approach to "investing". I, too, fluctuate between 100% invested in equities and, at times, up to 50% cash.

Selling shares to harvest profits isn't difficult. As the saying goes: "No one ever went broke booking profits". Oh, sure, one might suffer pangs of unrequited greed if the stock continues to climb higher (at times, quite a bit higher). Yep, it happens. Not all that often in my narrow stock universe.

It's the buying back part that poses the biggest challenge for me. I'm always committed to buying back sold shares in order to have my holdings grow over time. Buy-book profits-buy more-lather-rinse-repeat.

But I never feel good clicking the "Place Order" button. When stocks are falling, loud voices cite failure, downgrade, predict doom. No matter how deeply I pondercate the matter, I've never been able to predict the severity of the fall from grace, or the length of time it will take for a stock to rebound. I tend to buy back too soon. That's why I trade in increments. Some might claim that I'm grabbing for "falling knives". True enough. I've been bloodied often. Even so, I end up owning more shares of companies I believe have good long-term prospects than I would have had had I never booked profits. It makes the temporary stomach-aches bearable.

I still get queasy clicking the "Place Order" button, though.