FAQ: Why Did My Success Rate Go Down When I Increased Expected Stock Returns?

The model isn’t meant to use the overridden rate of return assumptions in the Success Rate calculations. It simply uses the historical variability, beginning balance at the start of retirement, annual withdrawals, and your target asset allocation.

“Hoping” for a higher rate of return than the default won’t improve the success rate because it’s based on history.

The other factor that gets included in Success Rate is the investment fees, the higher investment fees the lower the historical returns. In theory you could “trick” the model into a higher Success Rate by adding a negative fee assumption. This would result in a higher rate of return and it would directly impact the Success Rate calculations. But again, the model was not set up to be forced into higher success rates simply by increasing the rate of return assumption so we do not recommend this.