The interactive charting tools are my own homemade creations for backtesting portfolios. I originally started making them to study my own investments, but I quickly realized that they could be scaled to study any combination of assets. I also believe that other investors may find the information useful, so I’m happy to share my work.
This page teaches you how to drive the tools — where to start, how the inputs work, and how to save what you build. If you’re curious about the math running under the hood, see Methodology. For where the numbers come from, see Data Sources. And for a deep dive on any individual asset, the Assets section has a dedicated page for every option you’ll find in the calculators.
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Where to Start
Every tool on the site is built for exploration, so you really can’t break anything by clicking around. But if you’re brand new and want a natural path, here’s the one I’d recommend:
- Set your home country. Every calculator has a country selector in the top-right corner of the portfolio settings. Choose where you live, and every number will be calculated in your own currency with your own local inflation, with fund suggestions to match. There are twelve countries to choose from, and the setting will follow you from page to page as you explore.
- Browse the Portfolios section. These are time-tested asset allocations from respected investing experts, already entered into the tools for you. Each portfolio page explains the thinking behind the design and lets you flip through every chart on the site for that allocation. It’s the fastest way to get a feel for both the portfolios and the charts at the same time.
- Explore the Charts section. Where a portfolio page shows one allocation from many angles, a chart page does the opposite — it holds one question steady (How fast does money grow? How bad were the losses? What withdrawal rate survived?) and lets you compare many portfolios side by side, including your own. Switching portfolios within a chart also automatically populates the asset allocation interface, which is a nice way to learn how the inputs work.
- Make it yours. Once the interface feels familiar, change the percentages. Every chart is fully customizable, and modeling your own real-world portfolio is what the site is really for.
No Tickers Required
If you’ve used other backtesting tools, your first instinct may be to look for a box where you type a ticker symbol. There isn’t one, and that’s by design.
Portfolio Charts does not track individual funds. It tracks the underlying indexes that funds are designed to follow. Any one index may be tracked by dozens of competing funds with different tickers in different countries, but under the hood they’re all following the same market. By working at the index level, the same historical data can model a portfolio for an investor in Boston, Berlin, or Brisbane — no matter which specific funds they use to build it.
So instead of a ticker, every asset in the tools is described by two pieces of information:
- The market — where in the world the money is invested, such as the United States, Europe, or Emerging Markets.
- The asset class — what kind of investment it is, such as large cap blend stocks, intermediate term bonds, or gold.
Translating a real portfolio is easier than it sounds. For example, SPY is a popular ETF that tracks the S&P 500 — large cap blend stocks in the United States. So if your portfolio includes 60% SPY, enter a “60” at the intersection of USA and LCB.
And you don’t have to do the translation from memory:
- Search by ticker. Type any ticker or ISIN into the search box on the Assets page (look for Search right below the main image), and it will show you exactly which asset class that fund belongs to. The database does not include every fund on the market, but if your ETF is a standard index fund matching a site asset there’s a good chance it’s in the list.
- Read up on any asset. Every asset class has its own page in the Assets section covering what it is, how it is defined, and real index funds that track it in every supported country.
- Check your work. For any portfolio you enter, the Asset Allocation section below the charts automatically generates a linked list of every asset in the portfolio with matching fund options for your home country.
The Asset Allocation Grid
The primary interface for every chart is the asset allocation grid. You can think of it like a periodic table of the elements, where every square is an asset you can include in your portfolio.
Rows are markets, columns are asset classes
The rows cover the United States, Europe, the broad developed world, and emerging markets, and the columns are organized into three groups — Stocks, Bonds, and Real Assets. The stock columns follow a simple size-and-style scheme: large cap or small cap, in blend, value, or growth flavors (LCB is Large Cap Blend, SCV is Small Cap Value, and so on). The bond columns are sorted by maturity, from long term treasuries down to treasury bills. And the real assets include REITs, gold, and commodities. If a square is missing, that simply means reliable index data isn’t available for that particular combination.
Enter percentages, and the rest is automatic
As you type asset percentages, the donut chart updates live to show the construction of the portfolio. Keep adding assets until the total reaches 100%. The moment it does, the chart calculates automatically. It’s all seamless, and there’s no separate submit button. You can also click the portfolio name above the donut to rename your creation.
Home Country
The country selector in the top-right sets where you live, which controls the currency, the inflation adjustment, and the funds recommended in the Asset Allocation section. The same portfolio can tell a very different story depending on where you live, so this one is worth setting first. Your home country also travels with you automatically as you follow links from page to page.
The Developed setting
The Developed row tracks a broad collection of developed countries for the widest possible coverage. But since “international” means different things depending on where you live, the row has two modes. With the home country set to the United States, the default is Ex-US, which covers all developed countries except the US. Click the small label on the Developed row to switch it to World, which includes the US. Note that the setting affects every asset in the row, both stocks and bonds.
Adding more countries
Below the main grid you can also add individual countries to the portfolio. Each country row includes its domestic large cap stocks, intermediate bonds, and bills. This is handy for modeling a home-country tilt no matter where you live.
Chart Settings & Interactivity
Beyond the asset allocation, many charts have their own local settings including things like a retirement length, a savings rate, or a target value. As a general rule, fields you see in light gray are editable inputs. Chart-level settings only affect that one chart, not the others on the same page.
The charts themselves are also interactive. Most include hover text with extra detail, and many settings are directly controllable by dragging lines on the chart itself. Touch the image and see what happens!
If you’d like to start over, refreshing your browser will reset any percentages you’ve changed back to the page’s starting portfolio.
Portfolio & Chart Presets
Depending on where you’re viewing a chart, the interface will also include a variety of presets to help you explore.
Portfolios pages include chart presets that let you easily switch between charts for a given portfolio. Charts pages include portfolio presets to help you compare portfolio options (including your own) on the same chart. And the Members Toolkit includes both sets of presets for the widest possible exploration.
Saving & Sharing
Every chart has a Save & Share footer with two options:
- Image downloads the chart as a clean image file, ready for a forum post or your own records.
- Link copies a URL that captures your full portfolio — every percentage and your home country. Bookmark it to save your work, or send it to a friend and they’ll see exactly the chart you’re looking at. It’s the easiest way to pick up tomorrow where you left off today.
Advanced Features for Members
The Members Toolkit contains a few extra inputs not found in the standard charts:
- Asset keys let members add their own custom data series to the grid — useful for modeling assets beyond the standard index library. Asset keys are entered in the Custom Assets section of the UI.
- Portfolio keys let members save complete portfolio settings for future reference. Save a portfolio from the Toolkit, and clicking Load will bring it back any time.
If you’re new to the site, the important thing to understand is that the Toolkit is built for convenience and customization but it is not a data gate. The same core data is in all the free tools, too.
Interpreting the Charts
One thing to know going in is that the charts are intentionally data-dense compared to other tools you may be used to. Rather than backtesting a single start date, every calculation models every investing timeframe in the historical record simultaneously. This is an approach I call start-date-independent backtesting, and I explain it in depth on the Methodology page.
For full information on how to read each chart, visit its individual page in the Charts section, where you’ll find explanations, calculation details, and FAQs covering the most common questions. And if you have a question not already covered, feel free to contact me any time.