But here’s a question: If you have a big pile of money to invest, what’s the better option: pound-cost averaging it or investing the entire lump sum all at once? The answer might surprise you. Vanguard research found that lump-sum investing actually beats pound-cost averaging two-thirds of the time. Because the market tends to go up and stocks and bonds tend to outperform cash, investing all at once produces higher returns in most situations. But — and there are several buts — this isn’t true if the market is going down. (Of course, nobody can predict where the market will go, especially in
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