It's all about dollar cost averaging.

That's when you invest the same amount, week after week or month after month for years, buying fewer shares when the market is high, more when it is low. Over time, there will be an average investment price for your money that has taken advantage of market lows.

But try telling that to Brad Rosenthal, 22, of Fox Chapel, who graduated this spring from the University of Pittsburgh with majors in finance and accounting and a minor in economics.

Mr. Rosenthal has landed a job as an analyst a PNC Financial, and for the first time in his life, he has capital to invest.

"I'm keeping my money in money market accounts now," he said.

What?

He said he was willing to take some risks, but right now, as the market is in flux, he doesn't want to risk what he has.

"Nobody knows how bad the damage is," he said.

With 40 years to go until he can qualify for an early retirement at 62, Mr. Rosenthal has plenty of time for his investments to gain ground, and money markets are not considered the sort of investment that can fund a retirement.

Mr. Rosenthal is bucking the advice of his former college professor, Jay Sukits.

Mr. Sukits, an assistant professor of business administration at Pitt, said he tells his students to pay attention to dollar cost averaging, "I tell them, 'Start investing right now.' "

He said young people (which includes those into their 40s in his book) should invest aggressively. And anyone who works for an employer with a 401(k) matching program should invest to the top of the match.

"If you have an employer match, you're just leaving money on the table if you don't put money in there," he said.

He said there have been much greater periods of loss in the market, and that over time it has recovered and grown, such as the collapse of the Dow Jones average after March 2000 when the dot.com bubble burst and over the course of about 14 months the Dow dropped 45 percent. During that same period Nasdaq was down by 78 percent.

Despite Mr. Sukits' advice, Nicholas Kennedy, 22, of Fox Chapel, who graduated from Pitt with a bachelor's degree in finance, also is in the money market.

"I'm definitely staying safe," he said.

If Mr. Kennedy was a client of Bob Nusbaum, the owner of Middle American Planning in Mt. Lebanon, he would be getting an earful about how he should be jumping into stocks right now instead of avoiding them.

At 22, Mr. Nusbaum said, an investor should have his money at 80 percent, 90 percent or even 100 percent invested in the stock market with a portfolio of international and domestic stocks and small companies.

The only danger is a total market collapse; but even then, there is plenty of time to recover, and young investors have the advantage right now of time for those shares to recover and grow.

Mr. Nusbaum's advice to young people is to go heavily into the market and hang on. "All of the stuff that is going on in the market shouldn't concern someone who is 22."