Flexible Retirement Planner Support Forum

For total portfolio value, I save off the actual median value.

However, the fact that the total portfolio median was different from the sum of the medians for the three subportfolios caused some people to be concerned and I ended up just displaying the sum of the three medians rather than the actual total portfolio median.

At the time I did some comparative testing and the two different approaches produce remarkably similar values (within .5% or less).

Looking back, I sort of wish I had stuck to my guns, since showing the true median total portfolio value is probably a more correct approach.

It would be trivial to change it since I still save off the median total value for each year. The question is just how many emails I'll get about the numbers not adding up...

Once again Jim, thank you for the prompt response. I would assume that with 10k simulations that the true median total balance would be almost identical to the sum of the median components. I had initially assumed that since the components added up to the total, that they corresponded to the actual total median. The reason I submitted the inquiry was not questioning the total balance but that I had noticed how smooth the individual components changed each year. I would suspect that if the bar chart showed components corresponding to the median total (not median of components) that the change in components would not be so smooth. Thank you again for clarifying the bar chart.