◆ Simulator Guide

What It Does

• Invests a monthly amount (optionally growing each year) across your chosen asset mix
• Uses actual historical prices from Yahoo Finance — not projections or averages
• Buys whole shares only at the monthly high price (conservative, worst-case entry)
• Unspent cash accumulates per-ticker in its own bucket until enough to buy the next whole share
• Dividends are tracked as cash received — not reinvested back into equities
• Cash dividends earn money market interest at the historical FRED federal funds rate

Steps to Run

1. 1.Set monthly amount, optional annual deposit growth, and investment period (1–20 years)
2. 2.Pick tickers from the dropdown — search by symbol or name, or browse the list
3. 3.Set allocation % using sliders — total must equal 100%
4. 4.Click ▶ Run Simulation to see results

What You'll See

• 6 summary tiles — Total Invested, Equity Value, Dividends Received, Cash Accrual, Portfolio Balance, MMF Benchmark — all clickable for drill-down
• Interactive charts — hover for month-by-month growth and dividend details
• Monthly breakdown table — click any highlighted cell for per-ticker detail
• Tax impact section — adjust your tax rate to see yearly liability on dividends and interest
• Annual returns — pre-tax performance per calendar year with clickable detail modals

Key Things to Know

• If an asset wasn't tradeable in a given month, its budget share automatically flows to the other assets that month
• The MMF column shows what the same total invested would have earned in a money market fund — a risk-free benchmark
• The Annual Deposit Growth field adds a flat dollar amount each year: Year 1 = base, Year 2 = base + growth, Year 3 = base + 2× growth, etc.

Share Accumulation — Example