Market risk, also known as "beta risk", is the risk that the market as a whole will drop, as in a crash or bear market.
Predicting the top of the market, and selling before it turns, is the holy grail for all investors, private or professional. The ideal is to sell your entire portfolio on one day, and buy back into the market two weeks later at prices 25% lower.
By definition only a very few will be able to do this, because to sell at the top just before a crash you have to be one step ahead of everyone else. As soon as everyone wants to sell, the crash is already on its downward spiral and it's too late.
Nevertheless, a few pointers:
The trouble is that none of these methods are reliable. There are plenty of examples of 'expert' pundits predicting the end of a bull market, only to watch it surge to new heights.
For private investors, the best thing is probably not to attempt to predict market cycles, but to stay in equities for the long term.
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