Dollar-Cost Averaging

In March 2020, international markets nose-dived due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impacts. At that time, I had been an attending physician for only six months. I decided to make a significant, one-time investment in low-expense-ratio index funds, knowing the market would eventually grow and I would compound over time. Fortunately, this bear market was relatively short-lived, and my investment was worthwhile.

With the bear market in 2022, I increased my dollar-cost averaging investment strategy interval from monthly to weekly investments. The idea is that instead of guessing when the market will be at a low, I’m investing a fixed amount at regular intervals (each week) regardless of the security’s price. This strategy aims to reduce the impact of short-term market fluctuations.

Fidelity makes this process easy through recurring investments. I have it set such that every Monday, funds are pulled from my brokerage account’s core position (basically, “cash” sitting there not invested in anything) and invested in Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI) and Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS).

Drop me a comment below with questions!

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Have you tried out the new Fidelity Auto Invest feature?

    I’ve set it up to DCA every Monday, auto transferring funds and auto investing in VTI and QQQM across my taxable brokerage account, Roth IRA, and Health Savings Account.

    • Absolutely! I’ve been using it for my brokerage account and the auto roll feature (which has been around for a while I think) for the treasuries in my emergency fund.

  2. Great post. Could you speak to the reason why you use Fidelity brokerage account with Vanguard’s ETF’s – VTI and VXUS vs Fidelity equivalents FXROX and FZILX? Thank you for your insight

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