Noob question: transaction costs

[Mediocre_Player]

So far, my investing has been limited to Index fund purchases, with a long term strategy. However, now I'm looking to get into ETF purchases (and possibly individual stocks)

My question is: what is an acceptable % cost incurred for stock/ETF purchasing. At what point does dollar cost averaging become unattractive b/c of the money lost doing multiple transactions?

ie. I have X dollars available to buy an ETF. How do I determine if I'm best off just using all the available money up front.

Hope this questions makes sense.

[Sniper]

If starters, if you are dealing with small monthly contributions to several investments, you might be better off finding the equivalent NoTransactionFee mutual/index funds that emulates the ETF investment, and using your brokers automatic investment plans to make regular monthly invesments (at no cost).

[pig4bill]

[ QUOTE ]
My question is: what is an acceptable % cost incurred for stock/ETF purchasing. At what point does dollar cost averaging become unattractive b/c of the money lost doing multiple transactions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Never, with the right broker. Some charge commission per share. They might get cheaper with bigger orders, but you still pay per share. The benefits of averaging are going to outweigh any difference in a few bucks of commission.

[gull]

Dollar cost averaging will hurt your returns. Even if commissions and spreads are $0, dollar cost averaging will hurt.

You can calculate this out yourself, but it depends on your expected returns and horizon.