What is Averaging Down?

When the value of a stock an investor holds drops, they may be unsure what to do next. They have three options: trade and take the loss, don’t do anything and pray the investment rises in value soon, or purchase more shares whilst price drops. Averaging down is a different option that may allow investors to grow their investment in a company at a lower price. If those shares later gain value, an average down strategy might pay well, but it’s crucial to know how things work and the dangers involved. It is best to have an advisor assist the investors in thinking through key issues while making buy-and-sell choices.

Definition of Averaging Down

Averaging down is an investing method that decreases the average price of each share by purchasing extra shares of a firm as its price falls. “Dollar-cost averaging” is another name for it.

For instance, let’s say that someone spends $500 on 10 shares at $5 per share. The price then falls to $4 per share. Afterward, for a total of $400, they buy additional 10 shares at $4 each. They now have 20 shares and have invested $900. Their stock’s average share price has become $4.5.

If the price rises to $6 per share, the average down method would have been a good way to get a good return on the investment. But, if the price keeps decreasing, they might lose money. They’ll have to decide if they want to continue to average down or quit out and suffer the loss at that time.

Is it Smart to Average Down?

To put it bluntly, the appropriate response is “it depends.” Moreover, investing experts’ views on the efficiency of averaging down tend to vary.

This isn’t a tactic to be taken lightly. Investors would be adopting a contrarian strategy to investing and moving against the trend if there is a lot of selling against a firm. Moving against the tide and purchasing shares while other investors are selling might be advantageous in some cases, but it might also mean you’re skipping the dangers that are causing everyone else to sell.

However, if investors are investing in a business rather than simply a stock, they might be able to tell if a decline in the stock’s price is transitory or a signal of danger based on the business’s past results and present situation.

If investors sincerely have trust in the business, averaging down might just be a good idea if they want to grow their investments. If they expect to own the stock for a long period of time, buying more at a cheaper price is logical.

Pros and Cons of Averaging Down

This technique may be beneficial in some situations. It might not function at all in other cases. Without seeing the future value for that specific stock, there isn’t any way to determine how it will function at any particular moment. Even for an expert with access to all available information, precisely estimating the future of a company, let alone an ordinary investor is a difficult assignment.

Pros

The main advantage of this strategy is that an investor may purchase more of a stock that they already desire at a lower price than before. It must be as much about the investor’s desire to hold a stock in the long run as it is about the current price fluctuations. Then again, recent price movements are just one aspect of a stock’s examination. If the investor is devoted to the business’s success and feels that its stock will keep performing well in the future, the investment may be justified. And, if the stock in question eventually turns profitable and grows steadily over time, the technique will be a win.
An additional advantage of averaging down is that it can motivate an investor to put more money into their investment portfolios, which is a good thing in and of itself. Investing on a routine basis is frequently just as crucial as every other piece of strategy.
Lastly, an investor’s “buy cheap, sell high” attitude may be tapped into by this technique. The idea, as with any investment, is to buy an asset that will either generate a stream of income or can be traded at a greater price eventually. As a result, investors must favor paying a lesser price rather than a higher one.

Cons

This technique demands an investor to purchase a stock that is currently dropping in value. And it’s always conceivable that this drop isn’t just a blip on the radar, but the start of a greater decrease in the firm and/or stock price. In this case, an averaged-down investor might have just raised their holdings in a losing stock.

A price fluctuation should not be used as the sole indicator of whether or not someone should acquire more of it. Prior to actually buying, an investor who intends to apply this technique must investigate the source of the decline—and even with thorough study, estimating a stock’s direction can be challenging. The reason for this is that short-term price movements can be influenced by investor demand or mood, which is infamously hard to estimate. It would necessitate understanding what thousand-if not millions-of investors across the world, including investment firms, demand the next day, next week, or even in a few years.

This is all linked to the fact that choosing specific stocks is tough overall. Most of the individual stocks, in reality, do not exceed the index averages. When you include the notoriously tough task of determining when to purchase and sell stocks, it’s a formula for disaster.