Portfolio Visualiser

[djadziadax]

Has anyone used https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/? Any tips on using the variety of tools? I tried both the monte carlo simulations (withdrawls) and the portfolio backtesting and both are giving me a lot better results than the monte carlo build in Personal Capital or the Fireism. It is a bit suspicious, but i was using actual tickers and correct porfolio % for each. Still the result was too good to be true.

[MustacheAndaHalf]

I use it often, so let me know if you find flaws.  It has been around many years.

You can test it by entering specific stock or ETF symbols, like "VTI", and comparing Portfolio Visualizer's displayed returns with the returns from Vanguard's website (or morningstar, or a number of others)

I find the "asset correlations" section fascinating.
https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/asset-class-correlations

But I mostly use it to plot U.S. Stock Market or S&P 500 performance across corrections, like 2008.  Sometimes people measure stock market performance from right after a crash, and you can get the real picture by looking at performance that includes the entire event, not just a recovery.

[djadziadax]

Thanks for the reply. I just learned of this tool, and find it fascinating especially the tool to comparatively backtest portfolios with different allocations.

My Personal Capital retirement projections are much worse than portfolio visualizer, and I cannot understand why. The "Poor Market" simulation in Personal capital is giving me a 57% survival of portfolio rate, while portfolio visualizer is giving me 99% in any scenario.

[Tyler]

It's probably a timeframe issue.

When you use real tickers in Portfolio Visualizer, it always crops the dataset to match the single asset in the portfolio with the least amount of history. It does that to make sure it can accurately model the portfolio, but the side effect is that you have to really pay attention to the timeframe when comparing the numbers to other portfolios or tools. It's rarely apples-to-apples. To have a consistent longer timeframe since 1972, try using the PV tools that use asset classes instead of tickers.

You might also check out Portfolio Charts. I'm admittedly biased because it's my own work. :) But if you're into portfolio backtesting and comparisons I think you'll find it useful.

[boarder42]

Thanks for the reply. I just learned of this tool, and find it fascinating especially the tool to comparatively backtest portfolios with different allocations.

My Personal Capital retirement projections are much worse than portfolio visualizer, and I cannot understand why. The "Poor Market" simulation in Personal capital is giving me a 57% survival of portfolio rate, while portfolio visualizer is giving me 99% in any scenario.

PC's tool is overly conservative and does a poor job understanding different asset classes you own and properly mapping them historically.  Also PC is there to sell you a service on top of the free tools they have so if the avg person looks at that and gets scared and buys their services then when they add their 1% fee on top of your assets it doesnt look as bad.

Tyler's tool is great as well i used a combination of Portfolio charts and PV to come up with our long term retirement asset allocation. 

[MustacheAndaHalf]

If you need a tie breaker, Vanguard's calculator is really simple to use.  You plug in allocations of stocks/bonds/cash, then withdrawal rate and years in retirement.  I like to "stress test" higher withdrawal rates to see where it fails.  That tells me the room I have between my intended withdrawal rate and a risky withdrawal rate.
https://www.vanguard.com/nesteggcalculator

When you use real tickers in Portfolio Visualizer, it always crops the dataset to match the single asset in the portfolio with the least amount of history.

OP should check for this - I hit this often.  If you include two ETFs created in 2002, and another created in 2012, you will only get returns from 2012 to present.  That can remove big events like the 2008 crash or dot-com crash.

[djadziadax]

Thanks all for the illuminating comments. I did see the timeframe issue on PV but just did not connect the dots. Thanks for emphasizing that. I do not really want to look at asset classes as I am not looking at a bond allocation anytime soon given the interest  rate environment and we are still in accumulation stage. I will look into the asset class option rather than tickers.

PV is great because you can use individual tickers but the timeframe limitation is real.

I do get a sense the PC is overly conservative in their 10% poor market modeling as it looks like they give you 10-15 years of -5% without any positive years. That is simply inaccurate and it does probably prompt many people to get their professional services, of which I will not avail myself, LOL. But, PC has your allocation between different types of accounts (tax free, taxable, Roth, etc) which is valuable. So i guess their average market senario is a bit closer to the reality, but maybe I should discount that a bit?

Any tool that allows you to model using the tax situation of your different accounts?

I have looked in the past the portfolio charts - will take a look again!

I will post a separate question on a particular fund I was made aware of.

[Weisass]

PC's tool is overly conservative and does a poor job understanding different asset classes you own and properly mapping them historically.  Also PC is there to sell you a service on top of the free tools they have so if the avg person looks at that and gets scared and buys their services then when they add their 1% fee on top of your assets it doesnt look as bad.

Tyler's tool is great as well i used a combination of Portfolio charts and PV to come up with our long term retirement asset allocation.

Well, then I guess I should be pretty pleased when PC Gives me a 92% success rate….

[boarder42]

PC's tool is overly conservative and does a poor job understanding different asset classes you own and properly mapping them historically.  Also PC is there to sell you a service on top of the free tools they have so if the avg person looks at that and gets scared and buys their services then when they add their 1% fee on top of your assets it doesnt look as bad.

Tyler's tool is great as well i used a combination of Portfolio charts and PV to come up with our long term retirement asset allocation.

Well, then I guess I should be pretty pleased when PC Gives me a 92% success rate….

Yeah you can quit with that from them. Mine is at 62 %. Visualizer is 99.12%

[ftsu21]

I would also recommend www.PortfolioMaster.net. This web app is relatively new compared with others listed here, but it has some nice features. I recently requested an invitation and have been using it. The interface is quite simple, to give you a sense you can check the screenshot here https://www.flickr.com/photos/194318108@N03/51655909453/in/dateposted-public/.

The backtesting results cover things like the total performance, breakdown of asset performance, risk contribution, worst drawdowns etc. You can also save your portfolio once registered and compare your portfolio with other portfolios created by other users on the app.