Topic: Should small investors consider market price before DCA (Read 388 times)

To everyone who replied and responded to the thread
Thank you
I think From all I’ve read so far, it’s safe to say that, the DCA is a no respecter of market price and the main purpose of the DCA  strategy is to be able to buy coin at any given price with the consciousness of price and any other factor.

At this point, I will have to lock the thread to avoid spams as I think the responses I’ve gotten is already enough knowledge for anyone who needs enlightenment on similar issue.

There is no method of investing in bitcoin that is totally risks free. One reason for using the DCA method is the convenience of investing. One thing to note is, DCA is not a short term investment plan. If a small investor can consistently invest specific amounts at intervals, it is highly unlikely for him lose everything or not to arrive at a profit if he was consistent for long term. If he continues to pay attention to bitcoin price at every given point, the essence of DCA will be defeated as he may not be consistent with investing, but wait always for the right time to invest. If the investor cares so much about the market at a particular period, then he should save up enough capital and buy the dip. What investors should have is a clear investment plan and goal.

For some cases especially for beginners it will be quite confusing because if the benchmark price goes up buying will not be profitable then they have to wait at what drop to enter the market. Patience in determining the accumulation price may be the key but I doubt that for the next few weeks bitcoin will experience a sharp decline. It is better to use the DCA pattern and we can do comparable accumulation for each specified period so that the investment can continue to grow.

If you do have patience then waiting for a decline is not a problem but we must have an idea of what price to buy. Every decision may have to be considered carefully so that we can continue to be in a profitable moment, both in terms of accumulation and selling some of the bitcoins we own to make a profit.

Right now I just buy whenever I get paid. Usually by around 3rd week of the month. DCA in at that point, buy-ins at some price points I think is worth it as well (like the 90k a few days back). If you were just starting out though personally, I'd consider the market price. Can't stomach that much loss (even though I know I'm investing in the long run) after all. Specifically why I started investing at the 18k ish point back then, cause I knew it was a pretty good entry point and can continue DCA at a pretty low price. If you can stomach say a 4 year stagnation then I reckon it doesn't matter much but again, it's me personally having such a mindset that I think it should be considered.

Buying Bitcoin now is not going to give a good profits because price is already saturated and it will not make sense to buy when price is at the top. Patience is a virtue! Instead of buying Bitcoin now, one can relax and wait for price to fall before attempting to buy some holdings. Bitcoin price is huge now and we can wait if the price can fall to $91k before entering the market again. Many altcoins have fallen so small investors can still wait for the market during consolidation to buy some Bitcoin and prepare for price to continue the bull run.

From a small investor point of view, I always consider market condition before doing my monthly DCA, I mean I will still buy no matter what, but the amount that I buy is different. Even though generally DCA is about buying Bitcoin routinely, I the amount Bitcoin we buy at the correct entry point will definitely make us more profit, moreover as small investor we have very limited money to spent on Bitcoin, so I need to spend it effectively.

I would say it depends on the starting point and trying to reach the end goal. Yes, if you are starting too small, then there is no need to do DCA at the first capital you get. The point of DCA isn't to have a huge capital, and then buy small by small, the idea is to keep buying for long term. Meaning that if you have small now, but get a bit more next month, still small, add that too, and another month and another month, keep saving into bitcoin and that would be great.

A lot of people failing to do that and unfortunately they are not aware that this would make them richer, it's the greatest method and yet a lot of people still fail to do that. I believe the best return we could get right now on this would be just keep investing into it, no matter how small or big, we need to consider how to do this properly, if we can do this then we are going to end up making a good chunk of money from this as well and can't really be considering that as a bad thing.

When I invest in Bitcoin I try to be consistent. I buy Bitcoin whenever I can afford it without worrying about price going up or down. This way I am working towards my long term goals and I am hopeful about Bitcoin future. I know some people prefer to buy Bitcoin when price is low but I focus on investing steadily no matter what price is. By doing this I feel in control of my investments and I avoid getting too stressed about market. My main goal is to build wealth over time and I think investing in Bitcoin consistently will help me achieve that.

Supporting this one  , because DCA  is not about the price in present because if does then this is Buying Low -Selling high strategy and does not stand about DCA .

I am thinking that if you always have to consider the current market price before you DCA, there will be times when you will be discouraged due to the market price not to DCA into bitcoin as you usually do. Maybe an investor should sometimes just concentrate on investing than looking always to see the value of bitcoins. Any opportunity that we miss to invest in bitcoin is one that we will regret, an opportunity to invest when the price is down, also an opportunity to invest when you have a lot of money to ignore whatever price the value of bitcoin is at that moment.

Some investor will often prefer to buy more coins in the bearish season as compared to the bullish season and that's why a good investor knows that a DCA strategy is a better option than lump sum, if one is considering investing for the long term, with accumulated capital.
It is also good for investors to ignore the volatilities that may be predominantly present as at the time when a DCA strategy is ongoing and should make necessary adjustments to their budget inorder to meet up the quota they have set aside for investment.

The reason why I prefer DCA over any other strategy is because we are dealing with an asset that is not predictable. Nobody can accurately predict the cheapest or the highest price of Bitcoin at a given time. That is why you just keep buying regardless of the price and time. Sometimes we want to keep saving our money and want to buy during the bear season when the price is low using a lump sum. The risk involved with using this pattern is that you might be tempted to use this saving for something else. DCA is a more convenient means of accumulating Bitcoin because you buy based on your income without any form of pressure.

The best season to buy Bitcoin using DCA is every time based on your income or plan. It could be weekly or Monthly. But if you can predict when Bitcoin will hit its lowest price and you have the money, a lump sum buying could be a good strategy.  


Yeah, I buy at any market price every week. And it has been one of the best decisions I have ever made in life.  

This is very representative and I opened a discussion with friends about buying using the DCA pattern and generally they said it could be done at any price as long as the investment concept they are running is long-term. But I tried a different DCA pattern, it was still running but more to see the conditions of the decline or in other words after the bearish market. This is possible to do because the condition of bitcoin is quite speculative and a decline can occur without being predicted.

But if you want to unify perceptions, there may be many people who have different views and it is adjusted to their own ability to recognize opportunities. I also do DCA for accumulation but consider market conditions because I want to accumulate at the right time.

Obviously the DCA strategy helps investors that doesn't have much money to buy in bulk to accumulate Bitcoin just with as little as they can be comfortable with since he or she will only be buying a fraction of Bitcoin and not a whole, the DCA is pretty much effective when being consistence with your accumulation, it makes you to be in the market on time without any form of timing the market, you buy at every price points on different intervals according to the available investment money. You don't make investment decisions based on market price, it can be automated by setting a buy order which can be executed regardless of the price points.

It is obvious that to make the best of our DCA it is best to time the buying when the market is down.  The reason is simply when we timed our DCA in that way, we can get more profit when the market become bullish.


It is not necessary to buy at every market price since the purpose why people DCA is to buy a fixed amount at regular interval.  If we plan to buy $100  every week then do so regardless of the market price but obviously we can modify your DCA strategy by adding triggers where we may add or lessen the amount we invest depending on the market price, like adding a certain percentage to the amount to buy when the price is lower and vice versa.

It depends on what price before DCA but many people will prefer during bear market to DCA which I also agree with it. As of now, exchanges having less circulation and also supply since many people are buying and also many people are not selling their holdings since the price goes up to 90k. As of now, it's even almost to 100k as I am writing this post. Since many people said that the price will reach which I think it will happen soon so they should have bought bitcoin when btc price decrease to 88k-89k before going back to 90k+.

Personally I would be careful when purchasing Bitcoin during its ATHs. It's always a high risk to be taken, because you never know if the tendency is going to be maintained for too long yet. There is a serious chance you do DCA during the peak, and the price crashes right after, so it will take you few years until you can recover your investment, once a new bullish season begins.

That is what happened to investors who bought during the peak of 2021. They had to be patient to wait until this year to finally cashout their profits. Of course in the end it totally worthed, but it was a long term movement.

It means you always have to manage and plan your finances accordingly. The mindset of a Bitcoin investor must be focused on long term goals, never on the short and middle ones, because this market is unpredictable when analyzing short periods of time.

I don't think it's a good moment to do DCA right now, neither to buy Bitcoin. The price is heavily inflated by a speculative event: Trump's election in USA. Too much euphoria going on...

DCA should be done at all time and not just when you think it is comfortable for your plans. The market price shouldn't be considered because the DCA isn't for you to make profits instantly but later in the future. DCA should be done with dates and not price of the market. Take a good look at some people or companies that post their DCA days publicly and you'll see that they buy both in the bull and bear market. Small investors or big investors, there's no difference as both investors are making the same profits but the difference is in the quantity of the money that they're receiving.

Both investors can make 10% profits on Bitcoin but the 10% profits on a $10k and $100k capital of investment are both different. DCA main purpose is to reduce the money you spent on buying Bitcoin and increasing the quantities that you will get because you spent less.

What many people don't realize is that DCA doesn't have to be blind buys. You can keep your money sitting until your buy in price is lower in the markets and then you can improve it.

So yes, you should consider the price before buying even when doing the DCA strategy. So yes, do consider it. It's an important aspect of investing long term that if you believe in an asset you should improve your entry price instead of just buying it blindly every now and then.

That's not true at O.P, because Dollar Cost Averaging method of investment is not like gambling or neither forex trading whereby you could end up having all your money liquidated when it's price value falls. Because many people might be having this ideology about "Dollar Cost Averaging" as been the process whereby an individual buys an asset when it's price is low and then sells it when the price is highly, likewise repeating the same process over and over again. But moreover, Dollar Cost Averaging is simply an investment strategy/method whereby you set aside a certain fixed amount of money and invest it into an asset at an interval of time frame. Hence, Dollar Cost Averaging method is a good investment strategy for both newbies and experience member.

This was actually im going to say that when it comes to that DCA thing then this will particular pertains about buying up Bitcoin no matter what the price it would be basing up into the schedule or moment that you have decided on making up such purchase. Its true that when you are really that waiting up for it to have some correction before you will really be making up such purchase then you are just simply trying out to buy at the bottom just like on what you have said. Making up such actions like DCA does really shows up to a certain trader or investor who do really knows on how this market behaves or works but to those who doesnt have that much idea on what they are dealing into then accumulations and holding it will really be their main priority or thing that they do have in mind. The only disadvantage on here is that as a small investor then you cant be abl to expect that you will be abel to make bigger profits. Always getting in line basing up on the amount that you had invested, people will really be that becoming that disappointed just because they didnt hit up their expectations. lol

Actually things like this depend on their own considerations but for me personally I still feel that when I do DCA then I will only buy what I can when it is in bitcoin without caring about the price for several reasons that I think I can be responsible for such as I can afford to buy at that price and I know the consequences that I get from it, my goal for the long term, my belief that the future will have better progress and it could be that I can't buy at the same price and it could be that when I wait it takes a long time.
So rather than that happening I would rather buy at whatever price I can afford.

Maybe this will not be approved by everyone because there are some people who prefer to buy on the dip but on the other hand I will still do it this way where I will buy without looking at the price because my goal is the future and it could be further than that.

It's best to lump sum during a bull market and DCA during a bear market.

---

Yes, just turn on a recurring DCA purchase and let it be. Don't try to time the market. Just consistently buy a fixed amount over time.

I have said that if you don't know whether or not you should DCA or lump sum, the answer is ALWAYS DCA because if you were truly convicted, you would know that you should lump sum as soon as possible. If you haven't reached that point of conviction yet, just set up a DCA and continue learning until you become so convicted that you dump all of your fiat for bitcoin as quickly as possible.

Before we could even talk about making use of DCA, we have to understand the market trends and know when its best suitable to enter the market, then we may later make use of DCA should in case the market is in favour of the same direction we took or not, but the essence of doing this is to reduce the risk of making more losses at the same time if the entry point we took is getting more on dip.


No, you set a buying time for you to invest when it got to a particular price.

learn more on DCA form this link.
https://dcabtc.com/

I mean if you are going to do a Dollar Cost-averaging whatever the price of Bitcoin you're going to buy it anyway regularly since you're still going to earn a profit in the end as long as you can survive the lows and sell on highs. If you are going to pick the right session before investing and doing DCA it would not make sense anymore in my opinion for sure the best time to invest in cryptocurrency or in Bitcoin is when the market price is red or if it is on low prices, but the point is we cannot control the market and we don't know how the market is going to move in the next day, month or year.

So doing DCA in my opinion is just starting to buy Bitcoin already, whatever the market price because we don't know if the market is going to continue to increase its price is going to have a huge drop. Doing DCA is going to be a safe investment since whatever happened as long as you are going to sell high in the end you are going to make a profit.

DCA >


The moment you invest based on price or on your feelings and you stop following a schedule that's no longer DCA that's investing based on whatever your guts tell you. So, simply put, the question makes little sense. I'm still surprised that after years and years of talking about DCA on this forum people still don't get the basic rule of it.

If you have a long term belief that the asset you are buying is going to rise a great deal over time, you don't need to worry about the price you pay so much, only that you get your hands on as much as possible.  Trust me, nobody who was in Bitcoin in 2012 cares whether they paid $1.80 or $15 for their coins.  It isn't the buying alone that makes you profits.  That's only half the tale.  You also have to be careful to hold until your outcome is reached as most people's problem isn't buying the right assets, it's not selling them before the right time.

The entire point of DCA is to allow people who aren't savvy enough to read the market trends or want to avoid the entire hassle of trying to time the market. If you're able to correctly analyze market movements, discern between the market cycles, you might be able to earn more than the average person who DCA. However, if you're unable to do so, then DCA is better. FWIW, most people can't and definitely not the smaller investors.

Not of the market but of ourselves when we are ready and have the money going for DCA.

Yes. I've learned that no matter what the price as long as I have the money for DCAing, I'd do it. Sometimes, I feel that the price is expensive but I would take my own words for that. I've sold in the past at a lower price and that gave me a lesson that if I do believe in BTC going further, I should take it and buy whenever I am available to and my pocket says so. We have our own interpretation of DCA. The most believed is to buy at any price that we can. The next one is whenever we have money to buy for and still at any rate, I think that both compliments each other and your goal for holding Bitcoin will support your own thought when you've got some emotions or your mind is telling you that it's not the best time to DCA because the price is quite expensive.

the DCA model is about just auto-paying. where people just make auto deposits and buy at whatever the price is at

however this is not the most efficient way to make the most of opportunities.
even when people do their employment pension payments automatically, there is a pension fund of traders that then deal with the efficiency of timing the buys at the best opportunity. so even pensions are from the employee side seemingly DCA but not actually DCA at the trade side of inside the pension fund

i say this because if everyone was to blindly DCA, alot of people can end up buying on the monthly high's and missing out on the dips.

so for those that want to be more efficient, sure deposit fiat every month, but instead of blindly buying bitcoin at whatever price is, as soon as the deposit is made. just take a look at that months trade market swings and see if the price is on that months low or high to judge if its best to buy or wait for a lil dip. .. ofcourse if by month end no dip occurred you can still feel that warm DCA feeling of blindly then buying in before next months deposit arrives.. but for some, wait for a dip if the deposit day is at a market high, it might help make some better buys if buying at a lower rate

...
many agenda mindset people want naive investor to just do the blind DCA, because the agenda minded people want naive other investors to "just buy" at any price.. in short be the naive people buying at the high when the smarter traders are selling at the high.
so yes there is a big reason you see people screaming to "just DCA" "just buy" at any price. as everyone knows, you cant sell at a high unless you have a buyer willing to pay the price

Well, if it's for someone that has a more experience on the price movement, they can buy anytime the price goes a bit below it's new or previous support zones. But another thing  is also depending on how frequent the person gets the money they want to invest with. If the person is earning weekly and doesn't want to spend all the money unless they invest it, then they might not consider price but how long they are willing to hold unto the coin. We know that this is the bull season of Bitcoin and after now, we are going back to bearish cycle when the price can even drop lower that the high price that some new investors might have bought their coins. If the person can hold till next bull season, there's no problem buying now.

The best market time to buy is in the bear market and that is the best time to DCA ideally. When the price is low. But for you to do this you need knowledge and know the right timing. But if you don't mind you can buy in a small quantity even now when the price is almost $100k

There is no exactly strategy that I use. I prefer to use the investment strategy of DCA and also just putting in significant amount when it comes my way. The DCA is automatic for me and the only time I stop is when I am facing a very serious challenge that is financial in nature.

Yes, that is DCA method of investing for you  you don't have to mind what the price of bitcoin is, the price of bitcoin is never a reason to stop you from buying bitcoin. The DCA method of bitcoin is a practice that is consistent and it is an investment that you are looking into the future that is why the current price of bitcoin is nothing to fear about because you already know you will definitely make good profit if you hodl. If you think you must buy bitcoin by considering what the price of bitcoin is I don't think it will be possible to practice DCA method and to hodl bitcoin.

DCA investors their target is just to accumulate as much of bitcoin they can for the future and the price of bitcoin is not a reason why they are accumulating bitcoin.

There is no best time to buy when using DCA method because you are buying every week or month constantly irrespective of the price of bitcoin and DCA is not done at a special time, otherwise it's not DCA.

Of course, that's it. The reason of DCA is for you to buy with little amount gradually consistently every week so that you can keep on growing your bitcoin stash overtime and it has not specific market timing, because if you stop, your bitcoin portfolio remains stagnant and wouldn't grow. Is just like you have a savings of 10% of your income to build a house in 5 years time and whenever you get paid, you keep that 10% in a bank every month till it piles up to the required amount. You don't stop saving that money monthly because the cost of cement is high or cost of sand is high or bricks.

When you buy Bitcoin using DCA, that means you buy Bitcoin constantly at some term such as 1-2 years. Whether the market is bearish or bullish, you can buy Bitcoin and no needs to think much about the market moves. You can focus to buy Bitcoin weekly or monthly and hold Bitcoin for some term. You only sell when your term is finish or the Bitcoin reach the new ATH price. And as long as you don't sell your Bitcoin, your Bitcoin will not liquidate and that will be different when you do trade. But if you trade and when the price is going down, you don't have to worry but still hold Bitcoin because the price will increase again.

Your aim for doing DCA is for long term so paying attention is not best action towards doing this strategy so if you look forward to earn when price goes up for more then you should not get worried about the price and you can start to accumulate at what figure currently show up in the market.


You need to do it consistently since if you wait for the dip then provably it will just give you a doubt to decide to buy, since those small dumps would provably bother you and that one could destroy your focus.

So just be consistent on accumulation and don't pay much attention on pumps also dumps since you are not doing any short term trades.

What I don’t understand on this post is the liquidation part while you are doing a DCA method. Typically, you are trading with spot market if you will use a DCA method since you want an average price for your holdings while trading on futures should be done via short term method since it has a risk of liquidation and at the same time you have a stop loss which should be hit before you can even do a DCA.

Do a spot DCA instead of futures if you want to purchase in red market. DCA is supposed for o use on red market tho.


I usually set a DCA bought that purchase everyday on specific time like before the market close since the price typically make a move on that time.

Ideally, DCA is designed to be independent of market conditions, focusing instead on the regularity of investments. However, some inavestors might choose to adjust their DCA strategy during significant market downturns to take advantage of lower prices, provided they can manage the associated risks and psychological impact of investing during a bearish market.

In its purest form, yes. The concept of DCA is to make regular investments regardless of the market price. This approach helps to avoid the pitfalls of trying to time the market, which even experienced investors can find challenging.

The obvious answer here is if the market were in a bear cycle. That would be the ideal time for anyone to buy and accumulate more bitcoin. There won't be any ATH recorded at that time so I don't think one should really worry about the price they will be buying in at that time.
Me? No.

I try to wait until the market dips before I buy again and when it is high I do not buy. When it goes and dip again, I buy. We all have different approaches towards DCA. Some do not like having to check the price because the point of DCA is that they regularly buy bitcoin without being restricted by their own decisions. Like if we do not follow a strict DCA schedule, one might be wary of buying yet and then they miss a good entry point. But with a fixed pattern, they don't really have to worry about this as long as they are able to buy.

DCA is for all investors, not only small investors. A big example is Microstrategy and El Salvador with their Bitcoin DCA investments recent years and they have been continuing it.

If you want to find best price to DCA, it is no longer DCA and with newbies it is more challenging. Every investors want to find best entry prices but they fail, and DCA strategy is here to help them purchasing without headache of thinking and finding best prices.

If you are very experienced in this market, you can try to wait for red days to DCA, but with beginners, they won't be able to do this.

- If you are picking when to buy based on different factors, that is not DCA. DCA especially tries to avoid the stress of trying to read the market and newbies should not be expected to be able to use technical analysis to predict the next price action. With DCA, the goal is accumulation with a long term target.

- You buy according to your calendar, much better to get in when the price is down as you get more value for your money.

It is important to note that you only lose when you sell.

- Jay -

The point of DCAing is to take the emotions out of investing.  You just steadily put money in over time, buying more when prices are low and less when they're high.  but your average cost evens out. You shouldn't stress about daily price swings.  Just invest on whatever schedule you decide - whether it's every week or month.  Doesnt matter if the market's up or down.  The amounts stay fixed.

Stick to the plan through bull and bear cycles alike.  It works out in the end if you stay disciplined.  Timing the market's impossible anyway.

If someone claim to DCA-ing Bitcoin but they still consider market price before buy Bitcoin, it means they're not DCA-ing Bitcoin.

DCA means you don't care anymore with the price, instead you're only pay attention with the time you bought, if it's bi-weekly, make sure you buy it every bi-weekly, not late or earlier than bi-weekly.

Paying attention to buy Bitcoin means you're trying to buy the dip.

This one, I think it's better to do DCA if the price is really very low specially if you are a small investor. The only problem is that it will be long and tough as it might take years to do it and so it's not just about the budget, but how mentally ready you are to go into a long haul.

Although motivation is obviously the big profits, so you have to look at the bigger picture to somewhat overcome that psychology. For me personally, I think about it this way, if others can do it, they why not me? So yes, if you are just average joe investors, then you might want to look or start your DCA when prices at a discount, and this could happen during the bear market.

But think about it, if we got into a bull run at around $180k, then the next bear market is around $50k lowest low, isn't it still too high for us in the future?

This is the right time to say 1 BTC equals to 1 BTC. There will be reduction in the amount you used to invested if you compare it with fiat like dollar as the price is falling, but there is no liquidation. Holding is not trading with leverage in derivative market.

I prefer to start DCA after a long bear market.

Your holdings of Bitcoin cannot get liquidated
Except you trading a derivative.
Everything boils down to the investor goals, capital and capacity
So there isn't any universal answer.
Personally I believe it's cheaper getting or starting in a Bear market and continuously accumulate
To a level you satisfied with.


Campaign does this for me
While I use my personal funds during dips
Though I usually separate them
Don't want to complicate the average price.

I made a recent post on a thread in the beginners and help thread and I think, it’s a topic worth discussion and for broader visibility and discussion, I’ve decided to bring it to a new thread so we can get more opinions and views

~ What session of the market do you think it’s best to buy when DCA
~ Do you just buy at every market price while DCA?