The famous dollar-cost-averaging strategy or DCA for short. Many trading strategy was built based on it but what is it exactly? This article will explain what is DCA and what results you can expect using it.
The Famous DCA Strategy
Imagine you have a big jar and you want to collect as many colorful marbles as possible. Now, instead of putting all your money into the jar at once, you decide to add a little bit of money every week or every month.
Sometimes, the marbles might be expensive, and other times, they might be cheaper. But by adding a little money regularly, you get to buy marbles at different prices over time.
This strategy is called dollar cost averaging. It’s like being patient and spreading out your purchases. When the marbles are expensive, you buy fewer of them, and when they are cheaper, you buy more. This happens because of the swings in marble prices.
Why is this a good idea? Well, if you try to guess the perfect time to buy marbles, you might end up spending a lot of money on expensive ones. But with dollar cost averaging, you don’t have to worry about trying to predict the best time.
Instead, you can relax and keep adding money regularly to your jar. This way, you get to buy marbles at different prices, and over time, you might get a good average price for all the marbles you’ve collected. Many people like this idea because it helps with the anxiety of being right all the time. We don’t need to be right about time, just consistent about our purchases.
So, dollar cost averaging is a smart way to save money by adding a little bit at a time and buying things at different prices. It helps you avoid making big decisions all at once and allows you to take advantage of the ups and downs of the prices.
How Does This Look Like In Crypto Trading?
Following the example with marbles, imagine you have a budget of $3,000 that you want to spend on buying Bitcoin. Each month, you want to spend $1,000. A simple DCA strategy would look like this: buy $1,000 worth of BTC every month’s 1st day.
No matter how the charts look like or what news came out, when the time comes, you buy. The price of Bitcoin will change each month.
Let’s say in the first month, the price of Bitcoin is relatively high, $10,000 per coin. You will use your $1,000 to buy as much Bitcoin as you can at that price which would be 0.1 Bitcoin.
In the second month, the price might be lower: $8,000, so your $1,000 will buy more, 0,125 Bitcoin.
And in the third month, the price rises to $12,000 per coin. You invest another $1,000 and buy 0.0833 Bitcoin.
At the end of three months, you have accumulated a total of approximately 0.3083 Bitcoin.
Now, let’s compare this to the scenario where you invested the entire $3,000 at once:
If you had invested the full $3,000 at the beginning when the price was $10,000 per coin, you would have acquired 0.3 Bitcoin.
In this example, by using dollar cost averaging, you were able to accumulate slightly more Bitcoin (0.3083) compared to investing all at once (0.3 Bitcoin). The average price is $9,734.42 per Bitcoin (total investment divided by total Bitcoin amount purchased). As you can see the average price is a little lower than the initial price which was $10,000. If we are lucky enough to purchase at $8,000 for all our cash, we would have ended up with a better investment. But timing the market is difficult and we might as well buy at $12,000 per coin and book a loss or significantly smaller profit.
Over the 3-month period, you will end up buying Bitcoin at various prices. This averaging effect can be beneficial because it smooths out the impact of price fluctuations and reduces the risk of buying at a particularly high price.
Dollar-cost averaging allows you to gradually enter the Bitcoin market without trying to time it perfectly. It takes advantage of the natural ups and downs in the price and reduces the stress of making a single big investment decision.
The Goal of DCA
In this example, we ended up accumulating more BTC than investing a lump sum. However, this might not always be the case. We can pretty much always end up accumulating less. This does not mean DCA did not achieve its purpose.
Remember, the goal of dollar cost averaging is not to guarantee profits or outperform lump-sum investments consistently. Rather, it aims to mitigate the risk of investing a significant amount at a potentially unfavorable price point and helps smooth out the impact of market volatility.
To summarize what we talked about, dollar cost averaging (DCA) is a strategy that offers investors a disciplined and less stressful approach to investing. By spreading out investments over regular intervals, DCA helps mitigate the impact of market volatility and eliminates the need to time the market perfectly. This strategy allows individuals to accumulate assets over time, taking advantage of both higher and lower prices. While DCA does not guarantee profits or protect against losses, it promotes a systematic and consistent investment approach that can potentially lead to favorable outcomes in the long run. Whether it’s for buying Bitcoin, stocks, or other assets, dollar cost averaging provides a practical and accessible method for individuals to build their investment portfolios steadily. So, consider embracing dollar cost averaging as a smart and patient way to navigate the investment landscape and achieve your financial goals.
DISCLAIMER
Trading cryptocurrencies involves risk. The information provided on this website does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of the article’s content as such. Author, website or the company associated with them does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Lastly, this article is not targeted at French citizens or residents.