What retirement planning software do you use?

bigadaj

bigfreddiel wrote: »

a couple of points now - MCA can be done on a spreadsheet

historical data - useful, interesting, but its history - its like a cv its a postcard from the past

random events will affect the value of everything - like red ed nationalising energy and rail, land grab and so on - no one saw that coming - how does your analysis cope with these random events?

i guess you factor it in after th event until the next one - hehehehehe

cheers

fj

I'd be interested to see your Monte Carlo analysis ona spreadsheet. Simplistically this can be done with small data sets and small iterations, but then it's pretty pointless. Using large data sets and ranges and say tens of thousands of iterations will be time consuming, both in set up and running. You'd ideally want to run it through a variety of probability distributions as well, so I'd be interested to see what you've done, I've only ever seen it with proprietary software, generally clunky database programmes.

bigfreddiel

bigadaj wrote: »

I'd be interested to see your Monte Carlo analysis ona spreadsheet. Simplistically this can be done with small data sets and small iterations, but then it's pretty pointless. Using large data sets and ranges and say tens of thousands of iterations will be time consuming, both in set up and running. You'd ideally want to run it through a variety of probability distributions as well, so I'd be interested to see what you've done, I've only ever seen it with proprietary software, generally clunky database programmes.

oh well i guess you just havn't looked hard enough -never mondbut just remember quality before quantity - just because you have a vast amount of data it won't make a jot worth of difference if the analysisis flawed

so don't get caught up with MCA or any other analysis,does good old WB rely on MCA - i don't think so.

cheers

fj

jamesd

I use Firecalc for market variability analysis and spreadsheets for the rest.

bigadaj

bigfreddiel wrote: »

oh well i guess you just havn't looked hard enough -never mondbut just remember quality before quantity - just because you have a vast amount of data it won't make a jot worth of difference if the analysisis flawed

so don't get caught up with MCA or any other analysis,does good old WB rely on MCA - i don't think so.

cheers

fj

Your posts really are becoming increasingly bizarre, I found them quite interesting and useful a while back as they honestly seemed to challenge a consensus but now it just seems mumbling.

So your honest answer is that you don't do mca on spreadsheets, you just don't use it.

Proxy

MCA can certainly be done on a spreadsheet. I spend half my working like doing things on excel.

Whether you'd want to for this kind of thing is a different matter.

yorkshireman2

bigfreddiel wrote: »

oh well i guess you just havn't looked hard enough -never mondbut just remember quality before quantity - just because you have a vast amount of data it won't make a jot worth of difference if the analysisis flawed

so don't get caught up with MCA or any other analysis,does good old WB rely on MCA - i don't think so.
fj

I think the reason people think MCA isn't worth doing is two fold:

1. They don't really understand what it is.

2. They don't truly understand the concept of probability, standard deviation, etc.

3. They don't understand modelling and simulation in general.

Scientists and engineers from bridge builders to NASA use MCA to get a clear idea of likely outcome whilst also being able to consider the possibility of outliers.

For example, if you run a million simulations and no space craft has crashed does that mean a crash is highly unlikely. Yes it does, if the data you entered is accurate and appropriate.

The same is true of financial planning. Can you accurately predict the success of failure of a plan using MCA, yes you can.

In my experience the vast majority of people in the financial sector either haven't heard of MCA or they don't fully understand it.

What many people want is assurance that THEIR plan for the future has a VERY highly likelihood of coming true, and modelling is an incredibly useful way of demonstrating that.

yorkshireman2

Proxy wrote: »

MCA can certainly be done on a spreadsheet. I spend half my working like doing things on excel.

Whether you'd want to for this kind of thing is a different matter.

I absolutely agree.

You can do pretty much anything on a spreadsheet if you have the know-how, but you'd have to be a spreadsheet genius to be able to do it.

It would be like doing the accounts for a multinational corporation on nothing but Excel. You could do it, but why not just use an accounts package that's designed for the task :-)

bigadaj

I agree, we use it for contaminant modelling and potential for dispersion and impacts. It does take some thought to work our what it actually does, and how to set it up which can itself be an iterative process. We obviously use proprietary software, and even understanding the process and risk and probability, including distribution of data, there's still the issue of the quality and reliability of input data.

My experience in my specific area of work reinforces the idea of sourcing inpu data from as wide a range of sources as possible, financial data may be more limiting but I suppose using modelling from a uk perspective but incorporating data and information from different world markets might be an aspect that could be useful.

After reading hale I was surprised at the fact that they suggested only running a few tens of thousands of iterations whereas we typically run the high hundreds of thousands to the low millions.

bigadaj

yorkshireman2 wrote: »

I think the reason people think MCA isn't worth doing is two fold:

1. They don't really understand what it is.

2. They don't truly understand the concept of probability, standard deviation, etc.

3. They don't understand modelling and simulation in general.

Scientists and engineers from bridge builders to NASA use MCA to get a clear idea of likely outcome whilst also being able to consider the possibility of outliers.

For example, if you run a million simulations and no space craft has crashed does that mean a crash is highly unlikely. Yes it does, if the data you entered is accurate and appropriate.

The same is true of financial planning. Can you accurately predict the success of failure of a plan using MCA, yes you can.

In my experience the vast majority of people in the financial sector either haven't heard of MCA or they don't fully understand it.

What many people want is assurance that THEIR plan for the future has a VERY highly likelihood of coming true, and modelling is an incredibly useful way of demonstrating that.

I think the big problem is that the vast majority of people have no appreciation of risk. Just look at nervous fliers who may well be the same people who drive like idiots. Even when risk is reasonably explained then most people wanta guaranteed return, which doesn't exist or at least doesn't if a reasonable rate of return is also required.

chucknorris

I'm not sure that I have a definitive plan to be honest, the main problem is going to be spending it rather than making sure that we have enough. I just use an excel spreadsheet. Currently I am trying to boost my pension as a hedge against living a lot longer than anticipated.