In the first part of this series, I wanted to test the claim that dollar cost averaging (DCA) was an effective strategy for protecting your investments. Too often I’ve heard claims against investing within the media saying that if you had bought stocks (particularly) during “The Lost Decade” between 2000 and 2010, then you would have had a -23% return on your money. After crunching the numbers, we determined that dollar cost averaging would have beat a static investment in the S&P 500 and returned a -6.8% return instead of a -23%. That’s great, but who wants a negative return?! Why didn’t we just hide our money under the mattress and do nothing? Unfortunately, that may be true. But remember that when it comes to investing: Defense … [Read more...] about Would Dollar Cost Averaging and Bonds Have Saved You From “The Lost Decade”?