Wade into the market? Or plunge?

What advisers say

One adviser with whom I shared my study said it was unconvincing because the lump-sum contributions each November themselves represent DCA, only annually instead of monthly. More realistic, he said, is the lump sum that arrives possibly only once in a lifetime, such as an inheritance or 401(k) rollover.

"Accordingly, for most of my clients I say, 'Why not just invest the lump sum and be done with it?' Most people will take this approach," says Warren J. McIntyre of VisionQuest Financial Planning in Troy, Mich. "However, for someone skittish about the market by nature, especially during a volatile time like now -- I think DCA is a great strategy from a psychological standpoint."

Fair enough. Every investor needs to remain in his own comfort zone. But research from DCA critics has demonstrated that lump sums aren't just the equal of DCA but are instead superior to it.

Dimensional Fund Advisors, a firm that runs sophisticated index funds that are sold only through financial advisers it trains in-house, did a study in 2004 called "To Wade or Plunge." In it, the firm studied four types of portfolios -- domestic equity, domestic balanced, global equity and global balanced -- over periods dating to 1970 for foreign securities and to 1927 for domestic stocks and bonds. In the trials, one portfolio invested on the first day of each year, while the other invested quarterly.

"For the domestic portfolios during the 1927-2003 period, plunging beat wading in about two-thirds of the trials. The average one-year excess return of plunging over wading was nearly 6% for the domestic equity portfolio and about 4% for the domestic balanced portfolio," the study says.

"For global and domestic portfolios during the 1970-2003 period, plunging again beat wading in about two-thirds of the trials. The average excess returns for plunging over wading were about 4.5% for global equity, 3% for global balanced, 5% for domestic equity and 3.4% for domestic balanced."

Despite such evidence, most of the two dozen or so financial advisers I polled last week are strong supporters of DCA. I don't blame them. What if they had recommended that a new client take the plunge on Oct. 1? By Oct. 10, the Vanguard 500 fund was down 22.5%. The client would have been gone, and everyone he met for the rest of his life would hear what a lousy adviser that poor sap turned out to be.

But if I had invested a bundle on Oct. 1, I would have gritted my teeth and held on. By Oct. 13, my loss was only 13.5%. Ten years from now I'll be lucky if I can remember what happened in those 10 days. And I would be sitting on a nice wad of money.

So take your choice. You'll probably make more money investing lump sums, but there's a chance you won't. You make choices like this all the time; you can break your neck riding a bike. TV's Monk -- whose theme song is "It's a Jungle Out There" -- doesn't strike me as the lump-sum type, but I suspect most of us are.

Meet Tim Middleton at The Money Show

MSN Money's Tim Middleton will be among more than 50 investing experts gathered in the nation's capital Nov. 6-8 for the fourth annual Money Show Washington, D.C. Just days after the election, this elite group will present more than 170 free workshops to help you prepare for changes in the political landscape. Admission is free for MSN Money users.

To register, call 1-800-970-4355 and mention priority code 009554, or visit the Money Show Washington, D.C., Web site.

At the time of publication, Tim Middleton didn't own any securities mentioned in this article.

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