What is more important to a new investor into UT funds is what is his investment objective - short term or long term? How he intends to do his purchases? Spread over the entire duration of the investment period or half of the duration or in a matter of weeks, ie. lump sum over a few weeks.

(Please note: lump sum as a single sum of money; as opposite to doing the purchases using money out of monthly income/salary.)

The bull rally has been over 1 year without any 5% and more correction, so far the dips is about 3%... maybe it will happen this week, nobody knows for sure.

Spreading the purchases thin or not depends on the market outlook/forecast... will the markets continue its upward momentum in the next 12 months? If you are cautious, then spread the purchases thin, and do regular monthly purchases - as in DCA or VA purchases.

If you are bullish, and either go big or go home, then do a lump sum investment. A lump sum as said is a single sum of money, and whether this single sum is invested over a day or over several weeks, it is still a lump sum investment.

Usually this lump sum amount is a big amount of money. Usually a financial advisor would suggests spreading this big amount of money over several fund categories, a balance of fixed income funds and several equity funds. The equity funds can be various, some could be in a single country market, some in regional markets. Overall, this is known as diversifying the portfolio with asset allocation... meaning putting eggs into different baskets to spread the risk.

How to do asset allocation? First, what is your market outlook? You need have some market foresight if you want to gain the extra edge from the asset allocation.

If you don't have the foresight or not brave enough to do any market predictions or speculations, then you might want to spread all the allocations evenly - all having the same percentages.

If this is the case of a new investor having worries of market uncertanity and unsure how to react to sharp and sudden changes to the market, it is equally good (if not better) to be cautious and spread the risk by taking risk bit by bit, little by little,  by spreading the purchases.... as in using regular DCA or VA purchasing strategy.

The new investor can begins slowly with one fund. Don't have to follow the common "financial advisor" recommendations of asset allocation and whatnot.