Investment Strategies: Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is an investment technique of buying a fixed dollar amount of a particular investment on a regular schedule, regardless of the share price. The investor purchases more shares when prices are low and fewer shares when prices are high. DCA reduces the impact of volatility on large purchases of financial assets such as equities. By dividing the total sum to be invested in the market (e.g. $100,000) into equal amounts put into the market at regular intervals (e.g. $1000 over 100 weeks), DCA reduces the risk of incurring a substantial loss resulting from investing the entire "lump sum" just before a fall in the market. Dollar cost averaging is not always the most profitable way to invest a large sum, but it minimizes downside risk.


In essence, the technique works in markets undergoing temporary declines because it exposes only part of the total sum to the decline. The technique is so-called because of its potential for reducing the average cost of shares bought. As the amount of shares that can be bought for a fixed amount of money varies inversely with their price, DCA effectively leads to more shares being purchased when their price is low and fewer when they are expensive. As a result, DCA can lower the total average cost per share of the investment, giving the investor a lower overall cost for the shares purchased over time.

Here are two different examples of dollar-cost-averaging that will help you understand it better:

 

 

Here are three different web links, if you want some deeper details on - what is dollar cost averaging, why dollar cost averaging is a smart strategy and why dollar cost averaging works well with mutual funds.