How to read your projection

A projection is a distribution, not a forecast. The most useful reading habit is to look at the bad tail before the median.

Each run simulates a thousand market lifetimes. The chart shows where those runs ended up: a median line with bands around it, not a prediction of your future.

Step by step

  1. Read the worst decile first. The worst 10% band is the plan you would actually have to live in if things went badly. If that outcome is survivable, the plan is robust.
  2. Then the median. Half of runs ended above this line and half below. It is the central case, not the expected case in any stronger sense.
  3. Check probability of success. The share of runs that funded spending for the whole horizon. Use it to compare two versions of your plan rather than as a literal probability.
  4. Switch to today’s dollars. Every chart can show real rather than nominal values. Long-horizon nominal figures are misleading; real figures can be compared with what you spend now.

If the range looks implausibly wide, that is usually correct rather than a bug. Forty years of compounding on uncertain returns produces genuinely wide outcomes, and a tool that hides that is not being more accurate, only more confident.

Common questions

Why does the median differ from a simple compound-growth calculation?
Because compounding cares about the sequence of returns, not their average. A straight-line projection at the average return produces a path no investor could have experienced.
Does the projection include taxes?
No. Killion projects pre-tax outcomes today and does not model tax-aware withdrawal sequencing.
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