Reading the Results Chart

The Advanced Investment Calculator draws one line per strategy, plotting net equity — the portfolio's value minus every outstanding loan — at the end of each year. Press Recalculate and the chart, the outcomes table and the panels below them all refresh together.

The chart shows a range of outcomes, not a single prediction. Each line is built from hundreds of simulated market paths — the same set of paths for every strategy, so the comparison between them is like-for-like — then summarized at three percentiles:

• Pessimistic (P10) — 90% of simulated paths did better than this.
• Median (P50) — half of simulated paths did better, half worse.
• Optimistic (P90) — only 10% of simulated paths did better.

Each percentile is taken year by year, independently: the P10 line is where the 10th percentile sat in year 1, then where it sat in year 2, and so on. It is a summary of the distribution at each point in time, not a replay of one unlucky market history — no single simulated path traces any of these three lines. A real outcome follows one continuous path, which could land inside or outside the band.

Switching scenarios

The Scenario buttons above the chart — Pessimistic (P10), Median (P50), Optimistic (P90) — choose which percentile band the chart, the strategy cards and the exit and drawdown panels are drawn from. All three bands are computed and returned together, so switching is a display change only: it does not re-run the simulation, and it is instant. The outcomes table is the exception — it always shows all three scenarios side by side, whichever one is selected.

Showing and hiding strategies

Click a strategy card above the chart to show or hide that strategy — useful when comparing just two options at a time without the visual noise of the rest. Unlike switching scenarios, this changes what gets calculated: a hidden strategy is left out of the next request, so the results dim behind a "Results reflect previous parameters" banner until you press Recalculate. A card left out of the latest calculation shows an em dash (—) where its dollar figure would be, labelled "not in last calculation" — the number it had before is not a result of the settings on screen now, so it is not shown. The card stays visible and clickable: switch it back on and press Recalculate, and it rejoins the chart with a figure again.

Crossover markers

A crossover marker is always a comparison against Baseline, the unleveraged strategy. On the chart it is a dashed vertical line marked ×, placed at the first year that strategy's line rises above Baseline's in the currently selected scenario. The outcomes table's Crossover column gives the same year as a number for all three scenarios at once, and reads never where a strategy does not overtake Baseline within the horizon.

It's a visual aid, not a recommendation — the "better" strategy at P10 is often not the same as the "better" strategy at P90, which is itself part of the point: risk and expected outcome move together.

If a number looks wrong

Below the chart, End of Year N Outcomes lists every strategy against all three scenarios. Click one of those figures — or tab to it and press Enter — and the detail inspector opens underneath with the whole breakdown behind that strategy and scenario: initial investment, gross investment, net equity, total outstanding loan split into margin and HELOC, unrealized capital gain, total capital contributed, non-capital losses carried forward and expired, the year's gross interest with the effective tax rate applied to it, and any portfolio shortfall drawn that year. Strategies that borrow against a property add four more: property value, mortgage balance, HELOC balance and home equity.

Two things worth knowing before you reconcile those numbers against the table:

• The inspector always reports the final year of the projection, for the strategy and scenario you clicked. It is not a per-year drill-down.
• Its figures come from a single representative simulated path — the one path whose final net equity lands closest to that percentile — not from the percentile line itself. The percentile band is a summary across paths and has no underlying schedule of contributions, interest and tax of its own, so the inspector shows the nearest real path instead. Expect the inspector's net equity to sit close to the table's figure rather than exactly on it.