Talk:Dollar cost averaging

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Contents 1 Too scant and unbalanced 2 Can you improve this paragraph? 3 New edits 4 Terminology

[edit] Too scant and unbalanced

There is not much in this article, but a definition, also the article is clearly biased against DCA, not enough balance.

Agreed. The article is clearly biased. A lot can be said for or against DCA, and even if you are of the opinion that it is a poor technique, it would be better to attempt to explain why than to simply state a criticism. People who know nothing about it may assume it is an unwise without understanding any detail. --Johnsm2 23:13, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, now it seems it has gone too far the other way, and is too vague. It says it's "generally considered safe" (whatever that means) but one of the main links is to a seminal article which argues that it is suboptimal. NZ forever 23:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you improve this paragraph?

The investor who has a stream of income (e.g., a dependable periodic paycheck) of which she would like to invest a part in mutual funds is investing in a pattern that seems similar to dollar cost averaging, but in fact the full investment is being made each time with no "spreading".

I think I know what it means, and actually agree with it, but it seems that there must be a clearer way to say it. ike9898 03:06, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New edits

I made some substantial edits to try to better elucidate the point of the tradeoff between expected performance and variance of performance when implementing DCA. That's the main point here. When expectations are for positive returns, DCA will cost you some return but will reduce the variance of your outcomes. I also added some relevent work on DCA horizon and some advanced techniques. Peters33 16:44, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

Is there a currency neutral term for dollar/pound cost averaging? What does the rest of the world call it?

147.252.92.148 (talk) 14:57, 16 May 2008 (UTC)