Timing the Market VTSAX

I do not think it is ever a good time to time the market. I would lump-sum invest according to my investor policy statement.

Given how early in the calendar year it is, I would figure out how much of the 100k I would need to keep in order to keep my spend run-rate while finishing maxing out my Backdoor Roth, pre-tax 401k, Megabackdoor Roth, 529, and I Bond buy for the year (not all accounts may be relevant in a given year). I'd lump-sum invest the remainder.

I would start buying something else besides VTSAX/VTI to complement it, such as a small cap value and/or international value fund.

I would never hold excess cash in accumulation. That must be dragging you down for the past couple years. That is the result of trying to be a market timer -- it never works unless you just get lucky.

Here are some ideas: https://www.paulmerriman.com/best-in-cla...

This idea of "With volatility of the current administration and tarriffs" needs to die. Listen to what Brad said in last week's ChooseFI episode (I think it was last week's): "our investing horizon is decades."

The market will always be volatile. There will always be something happening in the world that will cause some people to act in bizarre ways. If that ever stops being the case, then those same people will act bizarrely precisely because there is nothing happening in the world.

With that out of the way, if it really is extra cash (i.e., no realistic possibility of needing it in the next say 5 years) then dump it all in the market. If seeing the number bounce around will bother you, then don't look at it. If you go back and zoom in on a few months around the Cuban Missile Crisis or the energy crisis, you will see that the market was extremely volatile. Even the great financial crisis (which was only about 15-ish years ago) was tremendously volatile. If you zoom out to a window of the last 20 years, you can still sort of make out the blip that was the great financial crisis, and if you zoom out far enough to get the Cuban Missile Crisis and today on the same chart, it looks like a nice smooth line that is going up and to the right.

It's that simple; if you really are in it for the long haul then things like "the current administration" shouldn't even be occupying a single neuron's worth of space in your brain when it comes to investing decisions.

I'm in the same predicament....albeit with a smaller but still sizable amount of money. It's hard to decide!

Statistically, you're better off doing lump sum, but if DCA is more comfortable because the sum is large, that's okay too. The important thing is to create a plan then follow the plan so that you're not asking yourself each week or each month if now is a good time to invest or not.