[yamaneko]

Thank you, this is a great insight.

> A better rule, however, is: do not try to time the market. Just invest when you can.

I'm not sure if I understood this one correctly. Is it like, instead of trying to find the best time to invest, like waiting for something huge to happen, just invest every now and then when you are able to do it. Is that it?

[brndnmtthws]

That's right. If you have $100 sitting in your chequeing account to invest, better to invest it now.

Most people get paid biweekly or twice per month, so it would make sense to just invest when you get paid.

[rothbardrand]

Which means, taking say $100 out of each paycheck and investing all of it on that day. You're not timing the market then, the money wasn't available prior to that. You're not paying attention to the price, you're just getting the price on that day.

This is what dollar cost averaging usually means... assuming prior money was already invested.

But when you have a lump sum, instead of putting it all in on that exact day you can DCA over a short period of time, like 2-5 days or 3 weeks. This is basically averaging over that period which is better than the chance of just happening to pick the wrong day to buy.