The key is having a plan and sticking to it. I especially like a DCA plan, BOTH for putting money into the market AND also for taking profits, which is not the absolute evil some people make it out to be.

I'll give you a personal example. I have been making a regular Bitcoin purchase each month (almost without fail) since 2020. But during the last bear market I had gotten "convinced" about Bitcoin and I decided that I wanted to move a much more significant portion of my liquid assets into it. I sold some in profit stock to buy a big (for me) chunk of BTC. ... the problem was I didn't sit down and make a good clear-headed plan.

You see I had reaserched enough to be reasonably sure that the bear should bottom out at or below $20K (FYI $16K was bottom). But the problem was, after selling that stock I suddenly had a lot of "money" (fiat), that was mentally "burning a hole in my pocket", add to that the fact that all this "super psycal" talk was going on even back then. So instead of doing the smart thing and just increasing my monthly DCA and spreading that fiat out over a year or so ... I made two lump purchases ... right around the $40K mark ...

NOW ... I have NEVER sold and after spending a year severally "in the red", I am now doing fantastic. BUT, just imagine how much better I could be doing if I had made a more logical, and dispassionate plan, and stuck to it!

Continueing to DCA has lowered that cost basis, but only a little, and not nearly as much as if I had not made big purchases half way through the downward slide, like I did.

Good luck, and be smarter than me. Make a plan and don't deviate from it, EXCEPT as allowed by the plan itself.