Investing
Lump sum versus monthly investing in QQQ since 2020
This is the comparison directly: one plan puts 1000 dollars into QQQ on the first trading day of every month from January 2020, the other puts the entire eventual total into QQQ on the first day and never touches it again. Same fund, same money, same end date, different schedules.
Final portfolio value
$162,083.65
Total invested
Absolute profit
Annualized return (IRR)
Max drawdown (MDD)
Compare scenarios
Pin these figures as scenario A, then change any input above to see the difference.
Portfolio value over time
Transaction log
| Date | Price | Investment | Shares | Cost | APB | Total shares | Portfolio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-02 | $208.09 | $1,000.00 | 4.8056406687914 | $1,000.00 | $208.09 | 4.806 | $1,000.00 |
| 2020-02-03 | $214.08 | $1,000.00 | 4.6712251595924075 | $1,000.00 | $211.04 | 9.477 | $2,028.78 |
| 2020-03-02 | $208.34 | $1,000.00 | 4.799867139677573 | $1,000.00 | $210.13 | 14.277 | $2,974.40 |
| 2020-04-01 | $175.88 | $1,000.00 | 5.6857982405865926 | $1,000.00 | $200.38 | 19.963 | $3,510.95 |
| 2020-05-01 | $205.23 | $1,000.00 | 4.872513130204758 | $1,000.00 | $201.33 | 24.835 | $5,096.97 |
| 2020-06-01 | $225.80 | $1,000.00 | 4.428684233485547 | $1,000.00 | $205.03 | 29.264 | $6,607.77 |
| 2020-07-01 | $242.07 | $1,000.00 | 4.131015998598759 | $1,000.00 | $209.61 | 33.395 | $8,083.91 |
| 2020-08-03 | $260.33 | $1,000.00 | 3.8413329732723893 | $1,000.00 | $214.85 | 37.236 | $9,693.53 |
| 2020-09-01 | $289.84 | $1,000.00 | 3.4501817900785188 | $1,000.00 | $221.20 | 40.686 | $11,792.50 |
| 2020-10-01 | $272.76 | $1,000.00 | 3.6661783317128824 | $1,000.00 | $225.47 | 44.352 | $12,097.73 |
Performance summary
| Total return | +100.10% |
|---|---|
| Sharpe ratio | 0.87 |
| Average buy price (APB) | $359.29 |
| Buy & hold final value | $279,860.14 |
| Buy & hold return | +245.51% |
| DCA vs buy & hold | Buy & hold better |
| Final shares | 225.442 |
| Investments | 81 |
| Average per investment | $1,000.00 |
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Nothing on this page is investment advice.
The same money invested all at once
Lump sum final value
Monthly plan final value
Difference
The lump sum invests $81,000 — the same capital the monthly plan eventually contributed — at the first closing price of the period and holds it to 2026-09-04. No interest is credited to cash waiting to be invested.
If you had started at the worst possible moment
The worst moment is defined as the high that preceded the deepest fall in this window: QQQ closed at $392.51 on 2021-12-27 and then fell 35.1% to $254.66 on 2022-11-03. Daily closing prices throughout. The run below buys the same amount, at the same frequency, starting on that high and holding to 2026-09-04.
Contributed
Final value
Profit
Annualised return
Maximum drawdown
Buying the top is the outcome a lump sum risks and a contribution plan spreads out. The figures above are what that spreading was worth over this window and nothing more.
The same plan on different funds
$1,000 on the first trading day of each month from 2020-01-02, run to 2026-09-04 on each series in the committed price snapshot.
| Ticker | From | Contributed | Final value | Total return | Annualised | Max drawdown |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QQQ | 2020-01-02 | $81,000 | $162,084 | 100.1% | 20.7% | 35.1% |
| SPY | 2020-01-02 | $81,000 | $144,826 | 78.8% | 17.3% | 33.7% |
| VOO | 2020-01-02 | $81,000 | $145,205 | 79.3% | 17.4% | 34.0% |
Every row contributes the same money on the same days, so the columns are directly comparable. Prices as of 2026-09-04. Yahoo Finance chart API — daily adjusted close (dividends reinvested)
Why the answer is usually all at once, and why that is not the whole answer
Spreading a known sum over time means holding part of it uninvested for part of the period, and uninvested money earns nothing while invested money earns whatever the market did. In a period that rose overall, the lump sum therefore wins on the arithmetic, and it wins by roughly the amount the market rose while the contributions were still queued. That result is not specific to this fund or these dates and it holds in most historical windows, which is why the studies people cite reach the same conclusion. The reason the question keeps being asked anyway is that the arithmetic answers a different question from the one people are asking. The comparison assumes the whole sum exists on day one, and for most people it does not: the money arrives with each paycheque, and the contribution plan is not a strategy chosen over the lump sum, it is the only plan available. Where the choice is real, usually after an inheritance or a sale, the second consideration is the one the figures above make concrete. This particular window contains a very deep fall for this particular fund, and the drawdown reported above is what a lump sum investor would have watched their whole position do while having nothing left to add. The contribution plan bought that fall instead.
Reading the two figures above
The engine computes the lump sum baseline with the identical total capital as the contribution plan, at the first closing price of the period, held to the snapshot date. Both are measured with the same ruler, including fractional shares, so the difference between them is schedule and nothing else. Take the ordering as a fact about this window rather than as a rule. Move the start date into the middle of a fall and the ordering reverses; move it into a long rise and the gap widens. The comparison is worth reading precisely because it is specific, and the other pages in this set run the same comparison over different funds and different starting points.
Questions about this backtest
How is the lump sum amount decided?
It is exactly the total the monthly plan eventually contributed, invested at the first closing price of the period. Both plans spend the same money.
Does the comparison account for the cash waiting to be invested?
No interest is credited to uninvested cash. Adding a cash yield would narrow the gap in periods with high short term rates.
Other backtests worked out
- Investing 500 dollars a month in VOO since 2015
- Investing 100 dollars a month in VOO since 2015
- Investing 500 dollars a month in QQQ since 2015
Run your own plan in the Dollar-Cost Averaging Calculator and Backtest