90% of traders lose money, but anyone DCA an index would be making money...

Discussion in 'Trading' started by HolyGrailSeeker, Jun 30, 2020.

  1. So why not DCA? I know trading has the sexy allure of making more returns than the index but anyone who has traded knows it's hair pulling stressful and then also 90% of those who attempt trading fail.

    So why don't more people just DCA? You don't have to look at the monitor everyday and it's much more relaxed.
     
  2. maxinger

    maxinger

    Then most likely the percent will increase to say 99%.

    the less we want to spend time learning how to trade & the less we look at the monitor,
    the less chance of being successful.

    There is simply no short cut.
     
    VPhantom, Peter8519, birdman and 2 others like this.
  3. Not really. Dca through the Nasdaq anyone would have been a winner. Market has a long bias. When you try to do too much it becomes a 90/10 game where the best 10% takes 90% of the profits.

    Look at the super rich. They buy very expensive stuff without a sweat. Like the Winklevoss twins buying millions of usd in bitcoin when it was $200, or the Saudi prince buying the Salvator Mundi for 450mil.

    They know in the long term it will be worth more.
     
    jys78 likes this.
  4. Arnie

    Arnie

    I've urged all my nieces and nephews (9) to put the bulk of their money into a blue chip index via DCA. Young people don't realize until too late what an advantage they have in time. It really is the best edge they will ever have.
     
  5. maxinger

    maxinger

    It depends on the chart / whether it is bullish / bearish....

    Those who did DCA between 1998 and 2008 might have given up living.

    since 2008, market has been going up strongly. those who DCA since 2008 would be happy.
    of course, no one knew 2008 would be start of strong uptrend.

    all the best to your DCA strategy mister.
     
    birdman and BlueWaterSailor like this.
  6. It's not the best strategy in terms of returns but per penny per second of your time it's probably the best rather than than stressing out every day to beat the other day traders. Someone has to be on the losing end of day trading.

    The crashes don't matter if they are persistent in their dca. Like someone who dca from 1998 to now would have made a fortune even though there are two large market crashes.
     
  7. ironchef

    ironchef

    This is a trading forum sir. We are here to be the 10% (according to you and 1% according to @maxinger).

    We are an instant gratification society, we want to be rich NOW! We don't want to wait 40 years.
     
  8. Sekiyo

    Sekiyo

    You guys are irrational.
     
    ironchef likes this.
  9. wrbtrader

    wrbtrader

    Did you make a fortune via DCA since 1998 ?

    If not, why not ?

    Also, most people with a decent job have investments or retirements that's long term in the markets and the other money (loose change)...they're trying to be traders.

    My point, there's probably a low percentage of traders that only just trade. Heck, even the best traders don't touch their investments to prevent risk of ruin and DCA (dollar cost averaging) is not the only type of investment strategy out there.

    Yet, that low percentage of traders that only trade (no other job, no long term investments for retirement) seems to get people talking about all traders in general as if everybody is exclusively trading with nothing else to do with their money.

    Not true...just a small percentage of traders are only just trading. Everybody else that typically has a job that takes out a small percentage of their weekly or monthly check into some retirement fund or something similar like no matter if the markets are volatile or not...

    Money comes out consistently and goes into the market. Enjoy your investments and hopefully your trading is profitable too. I'm enjoying both.

    Yet, this is a trading forum...not the best place to talk about DCA or any other type of investment advice when there's investment forums elsewhere for that. :D

    wrbtrader
     
    Last edited: Jun 30, 2020
  10. smallfil

    smallfil

    DCA only ends up averaging down your losers. Ever hear of CSCO? It was as high as $120.00 during the dot com bubble, now, 06/29/20, CSCO closed at $46.15. That is after 20 years. You still have not broken even? Dollar cost averaging just means if you employed the strategy with CSCO, you would have bought at the highest prices and kept buying as it kept tanking, loading up more and more shares that are losers. What are the chances you made monies as opposed to losing monies during those 20 years? My monies is on the very huge chance you lost monies overall and not made a cent in profit.
     
    #10     Jun 30, 2020