Dollar-Cost Averaging: What It Is and How It Can Help You Invest
When it comes to investing, there are many different strategies that you can employ in order to try to maximize your returns. One strategy that you may have heard of before is dollar-cost averaging. But what exactly is dollar-cost averaging, and how can it be beneficial? Read on to find out.
What Is Dollar-Cost Averaging?
In simple terms, dollar-cost averaging refers to investing a fixed sum of money into a security or securities at fixed intervals. For example, let's say that you decide to invest $500 into a stock every month. If the share price of the stock is $50 when you make your first investment, then you will get 10 shares. But if the share price has risen to $60 per share by the time you make your second investment, then you will only get 8 shares. And if the price falls to $40 per share by the time you make your third investment, then you will get 12 shares. Over time, as long as the prices eventually rebound (as they usually do), your average cost per share will be lower than it would have been had you invested all of your money at once.
Advantages of Dollar-Cost Averaging
There are a couple of reasons why dollar-cost averaging can be advantageous. Firstly, it takes away some of the emotion from investing. When you invest a lump sum all at once, there is always the temptation to "time the market," which is something that even professional investors struggle to do successfully on a consistent basis. By investing small amounts regularly, you take away that temptation and just let your money work for you over time.
Secondly, dollar-cost averaging smooths out some of the volatility that is inherent in investments. Even if the overall trend is upward, there will always be ups and downs along the way. By buying shares regularly, you will buy more when prices are low and fewer when prices are high, which means that your average cost per share will be lower in the long run.
Disadvantages of Dollar-Cost Averaging
Of course, nothing is perfect, and there are also some potential drawbacks to using this strategy. One is that it generally requires patience and discipline, as it can often take months or even years for prices to rebound after a market downturn. If you don't have the stomach for short-term losses, then this might not be the strategy for you.
Another potential drawback is opportunity cost. If markets are rising quickly and you are only investing a small amount regularly, then you could end up missing out on substantial gains if prices continue to increase rapidly.
How alphaAI Can Help
At alphaAI, we take dollar-cost averaging one step further with our capital deployment solution. For every cash deposit a client makes, our models analyze billions of data points to determine the best times to invest it into the market.
Proper timing of capital deployment helps to prevent losses. For most of 2022, the time was not right to invest cash deposits into the market. That means that if you had opened a new account or deposited cash into an existing account with us, your capital would have been held as cash, thus preventing you from incurring significant losses.
Learn more about our automated solutions here.