My assets are in various TIAA-CREF accounts. Has anyone done the analysis to determine which ESP MC assets would model various TIAA-CREF accounts?

Thanks!

I am in the Monte Carlo options, specifically Implement Portfolios. How do I have 2 portfolios point to my retirement account? I am only able to choose one but have 2 IRA accounts. Do I need to combine everything into one or is there a way to choose two? Thanks, Jim

When I go to Planning Method -> Monte Carlo -> Build Portfolios tab and select the Cash asset class, it shows a mean real return of -3.01%. I've always just assumed this is because Cash earns practically nothing these days and so that would explain the negative real return assuming around a 3% inflation rate.

Hi,

When you are in a scenario it appears that only the default portfolio mix is available between scenarios for Monte Carlo. This means every time you create a scenario you have to create (potentially) all 10 portfolios from scratch. IT would be nice to have stored portfolio mixes and names that can be used across all scenarios.

For a Monte Carlo report, in the % Distribution Of Living Standard Report, why is the Living Standard for ALL percentiles below the Living Standard that is labeled, "Specified Mean Real Return" Living Standard?

This means that in the beginning years, 95% of the lives are performing below the Specified Return Living Standard. It doesn't make sense to me that 95 out of 100 lives do so badly early on.

Thanks for your help.

I am running reports in which my spouse lives an extra five years after my death. She inherits all my retirement accounts (IRAs). While the Monte Carlo reports for my retirement accounts seem reasonable until my death, hers don't. In hers all the percentiles are zero. The only column with values is "Specified Mean Return". I implement the same portfolio in hers and mine throughout the entire period of our combined lives. Seems like her M.C. reports should be roughly a continuation of mine. Am I missing something?
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I would like to test an all TIPS portfolio. In ESPlanner "Inflation Indexed Government Bonds" a.k.a "TIPS" show a mean return of 2.99% in the Monte Carlo section. The benefit of TIPS is supposed to be they hedge against high inflation: the kind forecast in Kotlikoff & Burns book "The Coming Generational Storm". My question is if the return of TIPS in ESPlanner matches the inflation rate. If not, and they hold at 2.99% their benefit will not be shown in a high inflation scenario.

I have defined Default as the portfolio for my wife's and my retirement assets, and Portfolio 2 for our non-retirement assets. The Monte Carlo entry screen looks normal, but the report page under Inputs and Assumptions/Portfolio Implementation appears to show each year duplicated with one version of the year correctly showing Portfolio 2 for non-retirement assets, and one version of the year incorrectly showing Default for non-retirement assets. I can't tell if this is affecting return calculations or not, or is just a harmless glitch.

I'm just starting to play around with user-defined assets.

Why is there no “relative risk” for new funds that I’ve added? Does this matter? Will this affect the way Monte Carlo results are calculated?

Why are the historical returns for some assets shown in real dollars (e.g., cash, large cap stocks, and intermediate government bonds) while others are shown in nominal dollars (e.g., DFA funds)?

I have been playing with ESPlanner for the better part of a month, and like Dan Royer, I have come to rely primarily on the simple “economics-based planning” method, even though the Monte Carlo capability was an attractive point in choosing the software. The “economics-based planning” is easier to understand, and of course takes much less time to generate reports.