Portfolio Survival Simulator

[bellert]

Does anyone have any good or bad experience relative to this Excel $19.95 portfolio survival calculator??

http://www.portfoliosurvival.com/

Thanks in advance
Bernie Ellert

 

[Bob_Smith]

Yes, Bernie. I bought it. I just wanted to have another tool to verify my figures. The output I get is fairly close to what I get at Financial Engines. Actually Financial Engines is more optimistic, by about $3,000 in terms of projected annual income, and I have been concerned that it is too optimistic. Of course they assume one buys an annuity, but I question whether one can actually buy an annuity that provides the payout they project. So I'm reluctant to rely on one or even two tools.

The directions for Portfolio Survival Simulator are poor - it took me some time to figure out how to use it. I use the Monte Carlo Simulations. Between Firecalc, Financial Engines, and Portfolio Survival Simulator I believe I'm being about as thorough as possible. I don't want to rely on any one tool. All three of the tools I use are in the ballpark. All in all, I'd recommend Portfolio Survival Simulator.

 

[Retiredtwice]

Bernie, yes I have bought and used the Portfolio Survival Simulator recently. I thought is was well worth the money. I ran the three types of simulations (historical, bootstrap and Monte Carlo) and thought the results were useful and revealing. If you have lots of time you can re-run the simulations with lots of variables (spending plans, mix of assets, time horizons, expense of investments, etc) to give you a number of different answers. Yes the instructions for the variables (particulatly the expalaination of the cash flows) is somewhat obscure but with study and some experimentation you can figure it out. To run a 10000 iteration Monte Carlo simulation on my 366mz PC took about 30 minutes. Smaller simulations (100 or so iterations go quickly) It must have EXCEL to Run. Run the small number of iterations (Monte Carlo or bootstrap) first until you are sure your cash flows and variables are what you want and then run the larger iterations.

 

[Retiredtwice]

Bernie, yes I have bought and used the Portfolio Survival Simulator recently. I thought is was well worth the money. I ran the three types of simulations (historical, bootstrap and Monte Carlo) and thought the results were useful and revealing. If you have lots of time you can re-run the simulations with lots of variables (spending plans, mix of assets, time horizons, expense of investments, etc) to give you a number of different answers. Yes the instructions for the variables (particulatly the expalaination of the cash flows) is somewhat obscure but with study and some experimentation you can figure it out. To run a 10000 iteration Monte Carlo simulation on my 366mz PC took about 30 minutes. Smaller simulations (100 or so iterations go quickly) It must have EXCEL to Run. Run the small number of iterations (Monte Carlo or bootstrap) first until you are sure your cash flows and variables are what you want and then run the larger iterations.

 

[Retiredtwice]

Bernie, yes I have bought and used the Portfolio Survival Simulator recently. I thought is was well worth the money. I ran the three types of simulations (historical, bootstrap and Monte Carlo) and thought the results were useful and revealing. If you have lots of time you can re-run the simulations with lots of variables (spending plans, mix of assets, time horizons, expense of investments, etc) to give you a number of different answers. Yes the instructions for the variables (particulatly the expalaination of the cash flows) is somewhat obscure but with study and some experimentation you can figure it out. To run a 10000 iteration Monte Carlo simulation on my 366mz PC took about 30 minutes. Smaller simulations (100 or so iterations go quickly) It must have EXCEL to Run. Run the small number of iterations (Monte Carlo or bootstrap) first until you are sure your cash flows and variables are what you want and then run the larger iterations.