DCA · Gold (PAXG)

Buy a fixed amount on a fixed schedule, never sell. The baseline every other strategy must beat.

Total return

130.8%

10,000 → 23,075

vs buy & hold

+12.2%

over the same period 118.6%

Max drawdown

27.9%

10,000 → 8,776

Longest underwater

634

634 days · 94% of the period

Settings that beat it

11 / 16

of 16 parameter settings tested

Win rate

—

n=0

This beat simply buying and holding.

Over 2020-09-01 → 2026-09-23 it returned 130.8% against 118.6% for buying once on the first day and never touching it — 12.2% better. Across the whole parameter grid, 11 of 16 settings beat the benchmark; the median setting returned 121.5%.

It spent 634 days below its previous high at the longest stretch — 94% of the whole period under water.

Price & fills

Equity

account equitybuy & holddashed = starting capital

49 fills. Signals are taken on the close and filled at the next open.

A 0% risk of ruin here is a property of the test, not a safety rating. These runs are long-only spot with no borrowed money, so there is no margin call and nothing can force the position closed. The account cannot be wiped out — it gets stuck holding the asset instead. Capital deployed (49×) and max drawdown (27.9%) are the numbers that carry the risk on this page. The same rules run on margin would be a different measurement, and this figure would not stay at zero.

Outcome distribution

A single return is one chosen start date. These are 62 runs of the same rules with the start shifted forward 30 days at a time.

Worst	p10	p25	Median	p75	p90	Best	Losing starts
-10.8%	-2.2%	0.5%	6.1%	19.5%	25.1%	40.2%	21%

Does it survive outside its best case?

The numbers above are one market on one timeframe. A rule that only works there did not work — the market did.

Timeframe

Same rules, same parameters, different candle size on Gold (PAXG).

Timeframe	Trades	Return	Buy & hold	vs B&H	Beat it
4H	13281	121%	119%	+3%	yes
1D ←	2214	131%	119%	+12%	yes
1W	316	82%	123%	-40%	no

Market — 3 of 3

Same rules, same parameters, different asset — daily candles.

Market	Return	Buy & hold	vs B&H	Beat it
BTC/USDT	1059%	530%	+529%	yes
ETH/USDT	671%	276%	+395%	yes
Gold (PAXG) ←	131%	119%	+12%	yes

Does it survive its own parameters?

The headline above uses one parameter setting. Here is every setting tested: 16 combinations, median 121.5%, best 133.3%, worst 67.8%. 11 of them beat buy & hold.

Parameter grid

DCA run across its own parameter range over the full period. The same rules flip from profit to loss depending only on the numbers you picked — which is why a single headline return is meaningless on its own.

	intervalBars 1	intervalBars 7	intervalBars 14	intervalBars 30
amountPct 0.01	125%	133%	128%	68%
amountPct 0.02	121%	131%	132%	124%
amountPct 0.05	115%	120%	126%	128%
amountPct 0.1	110%	112%	114%	121%

Hover a cell for trade count and drawdown. “·” = invalid combination (fast ≥ slow).

Year by year

Year	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026
Return	1%	1%	5%	12%	30%	-4%
Max DD	6%	11%	6%	7%	10%	10%
Trades	0	0	0	0	0	0

What it is

Reference — Glowwiki: 분할매수 (정액적립식)
The definitions and formulas below follow that article. It states its own limit plainly:
“실제 수익으로 이어지는지는 이 문서에서 다루지 않음.”
That is the question this page answers.

Note from the reference: The harmonic-mean advantage is stated against buying a constant NUMBER of units each period — not against a lump sum invested up front. Those are different comparisons and are commonly confused.

Standard retail accumulation method; described by U.S. SEC investor education material. Also known as DCA, periodic investment.

Formulas

Units accumulated

U = Σ (A / pᵢ)

A = fixed amount per interval

Average cost

P̄ = (n · A) / U

The harmonic mean of the purchase prices — always ≤ the arithmetic mean

Established

Dollar-cost averaging invests a fixed amount at regular intervals regardless of price. [1, 2]
Because a fixed amount buys more units at lower prices, the resulting average cost is the harmonic mean of the purchase prices. [3]
That harmonic-mean advantage is stated against buying a constant number of units each period — not against investing a lump sum up front. [3, 4]

Conventional reading

It is commonly presented as a way to reduce timing risk rather than to maximise return. [1]
On this site DCA is used as a baseline for comparison, which is not the same as the constant-share comparison the harmonic-mean result refers to. [4]

Listed as convention, not as established fact.

Sources

Dollar-Cost Averaging — U.S. SEC — Investor.gov (en)
Dollar cost averaging — Wikipedia (en)
분할매수 (정액적립식) — Glowwiki (ko)

Assumptions

Period	2020-09-01 → 2026-09-23
Parameters	{"intervalBars":7,"amountPct":0.02}
Fees	0.10% taker + 0.05% slippage, both legs
Starting capital	10,000 USDT · long-only spot, no leverage
Rolling test	365 bars × 62 start dates
Input hash	60d9b378edb3d5f3

Other strategies · Gold (PAXG)

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