Stock DCA Calculator

Lump sum investing vs dollar cost averaging is the choice between putting all of your money in at once and spreading it over equal buys on a schedule. With a lump sum, every dollar is invested from the first day. With DCA, part of the money waits in cash until its turn comes.

In lump sum vs DCA comparisons over long rising stretches, the lump sum has usually ended ahead, because all of the money is invested sooner. DCA has ended ahead when prices fell after the start, since the later buys got more shares for the same money.

To compare dollar cost averaging vs lump sum on the historical performance of one stock or fund, enter its ticker above. Besides your own result, the calculator counts how often investing all at once won across every start month in the period, which shows whether your result was typical for that ticker.

Say a fund trades at $10 when you start, then $8, $6 and $8 a month apart, and ends at $14 a few months later.

$1,200 all at once buys 120 shares, worth $1,680 at $14.

Spread over 4 monthly buys of $300, the same $1,200 gets 30, 37.5, 50 and 37.5 shares, 155 in all, an average price of $7.74. They end at $2,170, $490.00 ahead, because the buys after the first landed below the starting price.

If the price had climbed steadily from $10 to $16 instead, all at once would end ahead, $1,920 against $1,686.

Dollar cost averaging means investing a fixed amount at regular intervals, such as every month, whatever the price, instead of trying to time the market. The same amount buys more shares when the price is low and fewer when it is high.

That is why your average cost per share is never higher than the plain average of the prices on your buy dates. This dollar cost average calculator shows the average after every buy in its table of monthly buys.

In this dollar cost averaging calculator, the amount you enter is split into 2 to 60 equal monthly buys. Pick a start 1, 3, 5, 10 or 20 years ago, Max for the full history, or any date since Nov 1, 1999. The first buy is on the start date, and each later buy falls on the same day of the month, moved to the next trading day when markets are closed.

Both plans have the same total invested. Value is each plan's final value at the latest close in GNG's data, with every dividend reinvested, and gain or loss is that value minus the money put in. The sentence under the figures names the plan that ended ahead and the difference in dollars.

Yearly return is the annualized return of each plan. For the lump sum it is the steady yearly rate that turns the amount into the end value. For the monthly buys it counts each buy from its own date, so money waiting in cash is not counted as invested. Plans shorter than about a year show Under a year.

Average price paid is the money put in divided by the shares bought, adjusted for later splits. For the monthly buys, that is your dollar cost average. Shares owned now also include the shares bought with reinvested dividends.

• Every buy happens at the closing price of the first trading day on or after its date, and both plans are valued at the latest close in GNG's data.
• The first monthly buy is on the start date, and each later buy falls on the same day of the month, or on the last day of a shorter month.
• A start before the ticker's first price in GNG moves to that first price.
• Money waiting for its monthly buy is held as cash that earns nothing. In a savings account it would earn some interest, which would help the monthly plan.
• Dividends are reinvested at the closing price on the ex-dividend date in both plans.
• Splits and spin-offs are applied as they appear in GNG's daily prices. A one-day rise of 2x or more, or a drop of 50% or more, after counting recorded splits and dividends, counts as a real move only when GNG's split-adjusted prices show the same move and no split is recorded that day. Any other such day looks like a stock split GNG's price data does not account for, so the calculator shows no result and names the day.
• There are no taxes, fees or trading costs.
• The win count describes this ticker's past prices in the period shown. Past results do not predict future results.