We've had a lot of recent fun with our two part (and… growing?) series on reinvested dividends. First we told you that timing month to month purchases was a waste of time. Then, when the goalposts were moved, we redid our analysis for yearly purchases (while addressing the criticisms and giving you a wonderful story about a shower tiling job).
What sort of dollar cost averaging performance would an investor who started in March 2000 and (here's the kicker) only bought NASDAQ have seen?
Okay, make your estimate now (don't look!).
How Would Our Horrible Luck Investor Have Performed?
This investor, seriously, had enough luck to make him worthy of a new version of Alanis Morissette's Ironic (I owed Canada one).
He picked a sector (as we showed on Monday) that is still down from its March 2000 peak and started his career at a promising time (November 1999), which quickly turned sour.
Goalposts were moved and the football was spiked (it's not a perfect analogy, sure). Anyway, our bad luck investor still managed to eke out 8.55% annual returns over the last 14 and change years – despite an economy which, I'm sure you won't argue, hasn't been as powerful as historic American economies.
All this with the NASDAQ – diversified, sure, but still heavily dependent on the fortunes of technology.
Look, I get it – these article are weird, and long time readers know that I don't passively invest all of my money. So even though I've churned out more than a few epic pieces on dollar cost averaging, I don't even employ it for all my portfolio (maybe I'll do one on lump sum investing soon to balance it out). For me, holding about a quarter of my wealth in stocks in individual firms is just something I do – and I'll continue.
But the point remains: Your 401(k)? Your monthly IRA contribution? Your HSA's attached investment account? Your stock purchase plan? Your DRIPs? Anything that's automated… why bother messing with the automation? Even with perfect timing, you'll only pick up a few hundredths of a percent in alpha… and even with some of the worst timing in recent history you'll still end up like the subject of this article.