Considering that the name of this site is invest every month, I suppose part of the argument being made by the site owner is that we should engage in dollar cost averaging.  However, I'm not sure I believe in dollar cost averaging.

I have been told many times by my financial advisor that I shoud invest on a weekly or monthly time table so that my investments are spread out.  This means that I will be buying more stocks when prices are low and fewer stocks when prices are high.  However, I'm still buying the same dollar amount of stocks.

Doesn't it make more sense to hold onto my money and buy on the dips and hold back on the highs?  I know this is difficult to do becasue we never know when the market is going up or going down, but sometimes it is pretty obvious.

For example, right now the market is down a few percentage points from the high just a couple of months ago.  It has been a pretty quick decline because of some bad economic news.  However, the overall economy is getting better. 

I see our current time period as a great buying opportunity.  Of course, it isn't a great buying time period like it was a couple years ago when the market went down into the 6,000's, but I don't know if we will ever see that type of opportunity again.

The depressed market of a couple years ago is the perfect example.  I'm glad I continued to invest every month while the market was going down and back up again, but I am really glad that I made a large investment at about 7,200.  Now that the market is back up to around 12,000, my investment from a couple years ago (or was it last year?) is doing really well.

I know that I will continue to invest on a normal schedule.  I do so because I want to invest for my retirement and also because it allows me to invest without really having to think about it.  However, I really do believe that I watch the markets enough to know when we are in dips.  I may be buying stocks at good prices with my usual purchase, but I want to take advantage of the low prices. 

When I see a dip, I will continue to scrounge up more money to invest even though the theory of dollar cost averaging tells me to keep investing the same amounton a normal schedule.  My only question now is how often do I want o try to time the market.  Do I only do it on the large and very noticeable dips or do I try to start doing this on a shorter time frame.