#DCA

3 articles

Value Averaging Won the Lost Decade by $264K. It Quietly Demanded a $75K Single Month to Deliver.

Edleson's Value Averaging always hits the target. The honest question is what it costs you to get there. We ran six real historical windows — Lost Decade, Post-GFC Bull, dotcom crash — through the calculator. VA's edge is real. So is its $75K-month cash drag.

Dollar-Cost Averaging: Costs ~2% Expected Return, Buys Real Behavioral Insurance

DCA loses to lump sum on expected return by about 1-2% over 10 years. That gap is the price of insurance against panic-selling — and for many investors it's worth paying.

$50K Bonus: Lump Sum Beats DCA 67% of the Time (the Other 33% Is the Story)

Vanguard's research and our Monte Carlo runs converge on the same answer: lump sum wins about two-thirds of the time. The interesting question is what happens in the third where DCA wins, and whether you'd survive it.