My wife and I both have better than average financial backgrounds. She has a couple of finance-related degrees, and has worked as a financial analyst for many years (since a bit before the dot com times). I also have working knowledge of financial operations. So while there was some luck involved, it was certainly not "fooled by randomness".
I never believed that "timing the market" was possible so much as I believed that you can leverage other peoples hype to your advantage. BTW, I also made a couple of bucks in the hyped real estate fiasco, and then bought a condo on Lake Winnipesaukee, and then stopped. The difference is that most people over leverage themselves and keep going for "one more fix". Again, rather than being greedy in highly unstable markets I chose instead to get in and get out, in theory I'm leaving money on the table, in reality I'm just taking advantage of things to my benefit and leaving my "real" investments to a more sane and logical strategy.
All you did was reduce your sample size. That doesn't mean you're any more profitable than anyone else in terms of EV. For instance, if the market crashed during the short period in which you were exposed to it, rather than a little later, you would be hugely negative.
