The Question You Should Be Asking About Retirement, LFG Daily - July 20th, 2026
If you’ve been saving and investing for years, one question eventually comes up: “Am I actually on the right track?”
Many investors have multiple accounts—401(k)s, IRAs, brokerage accounts—but rarely step back to see how everything fits together. That’s why we offer a Free Portfolio Analysis and 1,000-Foot View Financial Plan.
This complimentary review looks at the big picture of your financial life, including:
• Your overall investment allocation• Hidden risks or portfolio overlap• Fees that may be reducing returns• How your investments align with your long-term goals
Think of it as a financial second opinion—a chance to step back and make sure your strategy is built for the future.
If you’d like clarity and confidence about where you stand, schedule your free portfolio analysis today.
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Dream Bigger, Sleep Better
Luke Lloyd, CEO Lloyd Financial Group
Monte Carlo Analysis: Will You Have Money Left When You Check Out?
When people ask me, “Am I going to be okay in retirement?” they’re usually asking the wrong question.
The better question is:
“What are the odds that I still have money left when I leave this earth?”
Nobody knows exactly how long they’ll live, what the stock market will return, how inflation will behave, or what healthcare costs will look like 20 years from now. Financial planning isn’t about predicting the future—it’s about preparing for thousands of possible futures.
That’s where one of the most powerful tools in financial planning comes in: Monte Carlo Analysis.
Retirement Isn’t One Straight Line
Most retirement calculators make one major assumption: that you’ll earn the exact same return every year.
Real life doesn’t work that way.
Some years the market gains 25%.
Other years it loses 20%.
Inflation spikes.
Unexpected medical expenses arise.
You decide to retire earlier than planned.
Life changes, and your financial plan needs to account for that uncertainty.
What Is Monte Carlo Analysis?
Think of Monte Carlo Analysis as running your retirement plan through a giant flight simulator.
Instead of assuming one outcome, it runs thousands of different market scenarios, each with different sequences of investment returns, inflation rates, and economic environments.
One simulation may resemble the 1990s.
Another may resemble the Great Financial Crisis.
Another could look like the inflationary 1970s.
Others combine good markets with bad timing, recessions, bear markets, or long bull markets.
After running thousands of simulations, the software tells us:
How often did your plan succeed?
Understanding Your Probability of Success
Suppose your plan is run through 1,000 simulations.
If 920 of those scenarios end with money remaining when you pass away, your plan has a 92% probability of success.
That doesn’t mean you’ll definitely succeed 92% of your life.
It simply means that under a wide range of historical and statistical market conditions, your plan remained financially sustainable in 92% of the simulations.
Likewise, an 80% success rate doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in trouble.
It often means there are certain adverse market conditions where adjustments may become necessary.
Financial planning isn’t about perfection.
It’s about understanding risk before it becomes reality.
Success Doesn’t Mean Dying Broke
Ironically, many people focus entirely on avoiding running out of money.
But another important question is:
How much money do you want left over?
Many successful Monte Carlo analyses don’t end with your account balance at zero.
They finish with substantial wealth remaining.
That remaining wealth can:
Leave a legacy for children and grandchildren
Fund charitable causes
Protect a surviving spouse
Offset future long-term care expenses
Provide flexibility throughout retirement
A successful retirement plan isn’t designed to spend your last dollar on your last day.
It’s designed to give you confidence throughout retirement while preserving options.
Small Changes Can Dramatically Improve Your Odds
One of the biggest advantages of Monte Carlo Analysis is showing how small decisions affect long-term outcomes.
Sometimes increasing savings by only a few hundred dollars each month significantly raises your probability of success.
Other times delaying Social Security by a year or two creates a noticeable improvement.
Reducing unnecessary taxes.
Optimizing Roth conversions.
Adjusting investment allocations.
Working one extra year.
Spending slightly less during the first decade of retirement.
None of these changes seem dramatic individually.
Together, they can materially improve your financial outlook.
It’s More Than an Investment Tool
Many people assume Monte Carlo Analysis is simply about investment performance.
In reality, it’s a comprehensive financial planning tool.
A quality analysis incorporates:
Retirement spending
Inflation
Investment volatility
Social Security
Pension income
Required Minimum Distributions
Taxes
Healthcare expenses
Life expectancy
Legacy goals
The investments matter.
But how those investments interact with every other piece of your financial life matters even more.
Planning Creates Confidence
No software can predict the future.
No advisor can promise market returns.
But we can prepare for uncertainty.
That’s the value of Monte Carlo Analysis.
It allows us to test your financial plan before real life tests it.
Instead of wondering whether you’ll be okay, you gain a statistical framework that helps answer one of retirement’s biggest questions:
“What are the chances I’ll have enough?”
The goal of financial planning isn’t to eliminate uncertainty.
It’s to build a plan that’s resilient enough to withstand it.
Because when retirement finally arrives, peace of mind isn’t created by guessing.
It’s created by knowing your plan has already survived thousands of possible futures before you’ve lived even one of them.
Click here to schedule a meeting — I’m here to help you take the next step toward financial freedom.
Colin Symons, CIO Lloyd Financial Group
We’ve had an impressive positioning flush in semiconductors over the last month. How much of a problem is that? Can we bounce back?
The worst positioning flips usually have some kind of trigger, even if it’s something a little silly. For instance, you could have something like Taiwan Semi (TSM) report strong numbers but go down anyway, as investors were already nervous about semis. In turn, people see TSM faltering and sell other chip stocks, as they figure if TSM can’s go up on good numbers, what can their stock do?
That’s somewhat starting in the middle, though. While dissecting a move is always going to lead to differences of opinion, I’d start by saying semiconductors were up over 90% in their June peak. That’s quite a move on something that was already up quite a bit. Part of how we got there was an impressive chase into the space, particularly in Korea.
Korea was really the heart of the speculation, with Samsung and SK Hynix leading the charge. We’d actually already seen two big selloffs in February and early June, but they bounced right back. The late June drop, however, has been the big one. You could fairly argue expectations ended up getting too high, but realistically, at some point speculation flares out and that can lead to a sharp reversal.
That said, I do think there are reasonable causes for this mess that go beyond sentiment. Broadcom’s (AVGO) earnings were honestly disappointing. Other chip companies are investing heavily in building more capacity, which is a scary choice in what’s historically a very cyclical industry that’s already had a great run. Chinese competition also appears to be heating up.
So, are semiconductors dead? That’s a very hard question. Generically, demand still looks very strong, so the most likely answer is that this was just a bad rotation and we should see a recovery. We’ve washed out a great deal of leverage and could be done with the forced selling at any moment. My only hesitation is if the fundamental paragraph up above is enough to give semiconductor investors pause.
Ultimately, the way I look at this is as follows. We’ve seen enormous short-term selling that seems more about trend reversion than anything else. We should expect a bounce from that. At the same time, we are seeing more fundamental worry, so I’d consider using the next bounce to lighten up on semi exposure, assuming you currently have some.
We are going to have more semiconductor reports, this week. The big ones are Texas Instruments (TXN) on Wednesday and Intel (INTC) on Thursday. My attitude is that much of what we’re seeing is driven by position unwinds rather than fundamentals. If that unwind is largely over, those still-strong semiconductor earnings can lead to a potentially powerful bounce. As you can see above, while semi stocks have been hit, earnings estimates continue to accelerate.
No doubt, risks are rising, which is something I hope to talk about tomorrow. However, estimates remain quite strong. While we can point to potential fundamental worries, that has yet to actually show up in the numbers. Until we have cause to believe we’re near peak earnings, it’s hard to get too negative, particularly after so many semiconductors have already been hit so hard.
Industrial Production was 0.1% m/m vs. exp. 0.2%, with durable goods slowing.
Housing Starts were strong, at 1.4MM vs. est. 1.3MM, though that was due to surge in multifamily.
Import Prices rose more than expected, at 0.3% m/m vs. exp. -0.8%, as petroleum and Chinese prices rose.
Despite talk of a wider war and days of fighting, oil is -1%, probably Iran said they were still open to negotiations. Gasoline went back over $4, as crack spreads remain high.
Korea’s Kospi index was -4% as it caught up after being closed on Friday. Today, the Nikkei is closed, but futures are up and Shanghai is also up 0.85%.
Domino’s Pizza (DPZ) missed earnings but is up 6%, perhaps because it was already -31% over the last year. I can’t find guidance, but they are profitable and expanding stores.
Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) are reported today.
Bottom line: Quiet but constructive start to the week
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