Quote: (01-29-2018 02:26 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:
Quote: (01-29-2018 12:58 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:
Quote: (01-29-2018 12:33 PM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:
I've got some money that I wouldn't mind investing. But this all seems to me like gambling and that's why I hesitate.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, Dollar Cost Averaging investing is likely to better apply to asset classes that you have some kind of long term positive sense that it is going to perform decently positively during your investment time frame - or you are using the asset class as a hedge against some other investment that you are making.
If you are considering the matter in a more gambling kind of way, then perhaps dollar cost averaging is not going to be good for you for this particular asset.
On the other hand, if you are fairly willing to invest, but you are just nervous, then that could be a sign that you are planning to invest more than you can afford to lose, so in that case you just need to consider widdling the amount down to a point that it no longer bothers you.
So let's say that you have a total of $6k available for investing over the next six months, but it is making you nervous to put that $6k into bitcoin, you just widdle down until you are comfortable, and maybe that number is $2k for you, rather than $6k? In the end, if you have decided that you want to go forward, then the next step is just making the amount comfortable, rather than being paralyzed by inaction.
The amount that I have is roughly $1500. But I don't want to put all of that in. In fact I'd like to maybe try other things too like buying gold. I'd be comfortable putting $250 or so into bitcoin over a few months.
My issue is that I'm worried that I might end up treating this like gambling, and then I might lose the lot. I've never been a gambler and I've never felt the urge to gamble. It doesn't appeal to me at all. The fact that I'm concerned could be a sign that I've got nothing to worry about, but still, I can't help worrying.
Worrying is somewhat normal, and I would think that you would tend to worry less if you devise a plan that is suitable to your own finances, risk tolerance, view of the investment, timeline and other factors that might be relevant to you.
Certainly, I am not telling you what to do or how to proceed, because you have to decide that for yourself, and surely $250 is not a lot of money to work with, so sometimes dividing it up can end up seeming like even smaller amounts. Let's just boost the amount up to $300 for ease of divisibility, and let's say that you want to invest that money over the next three months. That ends up being $100 per month or about $25 per week. Perhaps since the amount is seeming so relatively small to me, then perhaps, you just pick a day of the week, and just invest your $25 each week - or you could just try to time the dip for that particular week, and it will help you to monitor the market and maybe attempt to learn more about the market.
So, yeah, the other part of your question about devolving into gambling could become a bit of a risk, if you already know that you have a tendency in that gambling direction, but the fact that you recognize that you have such a tendency towards gambling is something that you can thereby attempt to create systems around such gambling tendencies, so that you are less likely to act on urges that you would like to suppress... therefore, dollar cost averaging could be a good tool for you just so you can maybe get a better feel for bitcoin and also get a better feel about whether you can tweak systems, whether it is dollar cost averaging or something else in such a way that continues to be comfortable for you.