IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/eurfin/v9y2005i4p509-535.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dollar Cost Averaging

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Brennan
  • Feifei Li
  • Walter Torous

Abstract

Dollar Cost Averaging is a strategy for purchasing equity securities that is widely recommended by professional investment advisors and commentators, but which has been virtually ignored by academic theorists and textbook writers. In this paper we explore whether the strategy is but another instance of irrational behavior by individual investors, or whether it is an investment heuristic that has survival value in an environment in which security prices exhibit mean reversion behavior that has only belatedly been recognized by academic theorists. Our evidence supports the view that the uninformed individual investors who follow this strategy in purchasing individual stocks to add to an existing portfolio are better off than if they followed the rational strategies traditionally recommended by academics. Copyright Springer 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Brennan & Feifei Li & Walter Torous, 2005. "Dollar Cost Averaging," Review of Finance, Springer, vol. 9(4), pages 509-535, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:eurfin:v:9:y:2005:i:4:p:509-535
    DOI: 10.1007/s10679-005-4999-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10679-005-4999-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10679-005-4999-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Y. Campbell & Martin Lettau & Burton G. Malkiel & Yexiao Xu, 2001. "Have Individual Stocks Become More Volatile? An Empirical Exploration of Idiosyncratic Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 1-43, February.
    2. Andrew W. Lo, A. Craig MacKinlay, 1988. "Stock Market Prices do not Follow Random Walks: Evidence from a Simple Specification Test," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 41-66.
    3. Brennan, M.J. & Solanki, R., 1981. "Optimal Portfolio Insurance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 279-300, September.
    4. Kurz, Mordecai, 1994. "On the Structure and Diversity of Rational Beliefs," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(6), pages 877-900, October.
    5. Leland, Hayne E, 1980. "Who Should Buy Portfolio Insurance?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 35(2), pages 581-594, May.
    6. Canner, Niko & Mankiw, N Gregory & Weil, David N, 1997. "An Asset Allocation Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 181-191, March.
    7. Bodie, Zvi & Merton, Robert C. & Samuelson, William F., 1992. "Labor supply flexibility and portfolio choice in a life cycle model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 427-449.
    8. C. Sidney Cottle & W. Tate Whitman, 1951. "Testing Formula Plans," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 6(2), pages 220-228, June.
    9. Philip H. Dybvig, 1988. "Inefficient Dynamic Portfolio Strategies or How to Throw Away a Million Dollars in the Stock Market," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 1(1), pages 67-88.
    10. Lo, Andrew W & MacKinlay, A Craig, 1990. "When Are Contrarian Profits Due to Stock Market Overreaction?," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 3(2), pages 175-205.
    11. Kurz, Mordecai, 1994. "On Rational Belief Equilibria," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(6), pages 859-876, October.
    12. Dammon, Robert M & Spatt, Chester S & Zhang, Harold H, 2001. "Optimal Consumption and Investment with Capital Gains Taxes," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 583-616.
    13. Michael J. Brennan & Walter N. Torous, 1999. "Individual Decision Making and Investor Welfare," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 28(2), pages 119-143, July.
    14. Terrance Odean, 1998. "Are Investors Reluctant to Realize Their Losses?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 53(5), pages 1775-1798, October.
    15. Constantinides, George M., 1979. "A Note on the Suboptimality of Dollar-Cost Averaging as an Investment Policy," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 443-450, June.
    16. David Hirshleifer, 2001. "Investor Psychology and Asset Pricing," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1533-1597, August.
    17. Igor V. Evstigneev & Thorsten Hens & Klaus Reiner Schenk‐Hoppé, 2002. "Market Selection Of Financial Trading Strategies: Global Stability," Mathematical Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(4), pages 329-339, October.
    18. Tarun Chordia & Bhaskaran Swaminathan, 2000. "Trading Volume and Cross‐Autocorrelations in Stock Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(2), pages 913-935, April.
    19. De Bondt, Werner F M & Thaler, Richard, 1985. "Does the Stock Market Overreact?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-805, July.
    20. Paul A. Samuelson, 2011. "Lifetime Portfolio Selection by Dynamic Stochastic Programming," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & Edward O Thorp & William T Ziemba (ed.), THE KELLY CAPITAL GROWTH INVESTMENT CRITERION THEORY and PRACTICE, chapter 31, pages 465-472, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    21. Michael J. Brennan & Yihong Xia, 2000. "Stochastic Interest Rates and the Bond-Stock Mix," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 4(2), pages 197-210.
    22. Routledge, Bryan R, 1999. "Adaptive Learning in Financial Markets," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 12(5), pages 1165-1202.
    23. Campbell, John Y. & Viceira, Luis M., 2002. "Strategic Asset Allocation: Portfolio Choice for Long-Term Investors," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296942, Decembrie.
    24. Blume, Lawrence & Easley, David, 1992. "Evolution and market behavior," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 9-40, October.
    25. Routledge, Bryan R., 2001. "Genetic Algorithm Learning To Choose And Use Information," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(02), pages 303-325, April.
    26. Michael J. Brennan, 2004. "How Did It Happen?," Economic Notes, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, vol. 33(1), pages 3-22, February.
    27. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1988. "Mean reversion in stock prices : Evidence and Implications," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 27-59, October.
    28. Brennan, Michael J & Jegadeesh, Narasimhan & Swaminathan, Bhaskaran, 1993. "Investment Analysis and the Adjustment of Stock Prices to Common Information," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(4), pages 799-824.
    29. Brennan, Michael J, 2004. "How Did It Happen?," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt1047x6kv, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    30. Gordon Pye, 1971. "Minimax Policies for Selling an Asset and Dollar Averaging," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(7), pages 379-393, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erol Akçay & David Hirshleifer, 2021. "Social finance as cultural evolution, transmission bias, and market dynamics," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118(26), pages 2015568118-, June.
    2. Dirk Ulbricht, 2014. "John Doe's Old-Age Provision: Dollar Cost Averaging and Time Diversification," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1376, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Dieci, Roberto & Schmitt, Noemi & Westerhoff, Frank, 2018. "Interactions between stock, bond and housing markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 43-70.
    4. Kapalczynski, Anna & Lien, Donald, 2021. "Effectiveness of Augmented Dollar-Cost Averaging," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    5. Mingers, John & Parker, Kim T., 2010. "Should you stop investing in a sinking fund when it is sinking?," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 207(1), pages 508-513, November.
    6. Peter Heinrich & Gerhard Schwabe, 2018. "Facilitating Informed Decision-Making in Financial Service Encounters," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 60(4), pages 317-329, August.
    7. Dirk Ulbricht, 2013. "Stock Investments for Old-Age: Less Return, More Risk, and Unexpected Timing," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1324, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    8. Kirkby, J. Lars & Mitra, Sovan & Nguyen, Duy, 2020. "An analysis of dollar cost averaging and market timing investment strategies," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(3), pages 1168-1186.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. DePenya, Francisco J. & Gil-Alana, Luis A., 2007. "Serial correlation in the Spanish Stock Market," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 84-103.
    2. Lin, Wen-chang & Lu, Jin-ray, 2012. "Risky asset allocation and consumption rule in the presence of background risk and insurance markets," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 150-158.
    3. Daniel, Kent & Hirshleifer, David & Teoh, Siew Hong, 2002. "Investor psychology in capital markets: evidence and policy implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 139-209, January.
    4. Wen-Jun Xue & Li-Wen Zhang, 2016. "Stock Return Autocorrelations and Predictability in the Chinese Stock Market: Evidence from Threshold Quantile Autoregressive Models," Working Papers 1605, Florida International University, Department of Economics.
    5. Guiso, Luigi & Sodini, Paolo, 2013. "Household Finance: An Emerging Field," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1397-1532, Elsevier.
    6. Xue, Wen-Jun & Zhang, Li-Wen, 2017. "Stock return autocorrelations and predictability in the Chinese stock market—Evidence from threshold quantile autoregressive models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 391-401.
    7. Sonntag, Dominik, 2018. "Die Theorie der fairen geometrischen Rendite [The Theory of Fair Geometric Returns]," MPRA Paper 87082, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Thomas Holtfort, 2019. "From standard to evolutionary finance: a literature survey," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 207-232, June.
    9. Christine Lai & Tsung-Chyan Lai, 2009. "Analysing the c-minus-age strategy for life-cycle investing," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(7), pages 711-718.
    10. John Y. Campbell, 2006. "Household Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1553-1604, August.
    11. Larsen, Linda Sandris & Munk, Claus, 2012. "The costs of suboptimal dynamic asset allocation: General results and applications to interest rate risk, stock volatility risk, and growth/value tilts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 266-293.
    12. Zareei, Abalfazl, 2019. "Network origins of portfolio risk," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    13. Semenov, Andrei, 2021. "Measuring the stock's factor beta and identifying risk factors under market inefficiency," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 635-649.
    14. Peng, Lin & Xiong, Wei, 2006. "Investor attention, overconfidence and category learning," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(3), pages 563-602, June.
    15. John Y. Campbell & Yeung Lewis Chanb & M. Viceira, 2013. "A multivariate model of strategic asset allocation," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part II, chapter 39, pages 809-848, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Lo, Andrew W & Wang, Jiang, 1995. "Implementing Option Pricing Models When Asset Returns Are Predictable," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(1), pages 87-129, March.
    17. Thorsten Hens & Klaus Reiner Schenk-Hoppé & Martin Stalder, 2002. "An Application of Evolutionary Finance to Firms Listed in the Swiss Market Index," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 138(IV), pages 465-487, December.
    18. Masaki Mori, 2015. "Information Diffusion in the U.S. Real Estate Investment Trust Market," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 190-214, August.
    19. Klos, Alexander & Langer, Thomas & Weber, Martin, 2002. "Über kurz oder lang : welche Rolle spielt der Anlagehorizont bei Investitionsentscheidungen?," Papers 02-49, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    20. Chordia, Tarun & Sarkar, Asani & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2005. "The Joint Dynamics of Liquidity, Returns, and Volatility Across Small and Large Firms," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt6z81z2wc, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:eurfin:v:9:y:2005:i:4:p:509-535. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.