RE: You can't afford to buy the dip unless you're selling.

That's not my contention at all. You are attempting to trade the up and down moves within the broader context of an 18 month bull market. My point, from professional experience, is that your returns are likely to be better buying at the beginning of it and selling towards the end than trying to trade every zag in between.

That being said... Ive said numerous times trading these up and down moves around a core position that you hold is not a bad idea. I'm just not a fan of being all out on the first major impulse move of this parabolic phase. Sure these past patterns may fail at some point but they haven't yet and waiting for a 52% drop when that didn't happen once during the 2017 bull market seems risky to me. You are betting on this time being different even though everything up to now has gone pretty much as expected.