Allocation Explorer (Beta): how it works
Beta feature · For education only — not investment advice. Projections use average expected returns for each model portfolio.
Availability
The Allocation Explorer is currently in beta and available to members opted into Boldin's beta program. To enable beta features, go to your Profile (top right) → Account settings → Beta and toggle it on.
What is Boldin's Allocation Explorer?
The Allocation Explorer lets you model an investment strategy matched to your risk profile and your stage of life — and see how it could shape your long-term financial outcomes. Each Allocation models a mix of equity, fixed income, and cash that shifts automatically as you move through life: more growth-oriented while you're building savings, more protective through the transition into retirement, and steadier once you're well into retirement. You explore a model, and the Explorer models the whole journey — then compares the results to your current plan.
What you'll see
Your match, with alternatives beside it — the strategy aligned with your Risk Profile and Life Stage is highlighted as your starting point, shown alongside the step more conservative and the step more aggressive so you can compare in context. Your match is aligned with your profile — not a directive from Boldin.
Five strategies to explore — from Conservative to Aggressive. You can model any of them, not just your match.
Your allocation over time — a chart showing how the strategy's mix of equity, fixed income, and cash shifts across your plan, year by year. Hover over any year to see the exact mix and your life stage at that point.
Your retirement age, marked — so you can see how the strategy curves toward protection right around the years that matter most.
Outcomes, side by side — projected savings, Chance of Success, and estate value for the strategy you're exploring, compared with your current plan.
The five strategies
Aggressive — Maximizes long-term growth potential. Holds the highest equity exposure throughout, accepting bigger swings for bigger upside.
Moderately Aggressive — Leans into growth with a modest buffer. Holds strong equity exposure before retirement, then eases toward fixed income as retirement nears.
Moderate — Balances growth potential with stability. Holds meaningful equity before retirement, then shifts steadily toward fixed income through the transition and withdrawal years.
Moderately Conservative — Prioritizes stability with room for modest growth. Shifts toward fixed income earlier, keeping swings smaller through the transition into retirement.
Conservative — Focuses on capital preservation. Holds the highest fixed income and cash exposure throughout, minimizing swings at the cost of growth potential.
Your life stage
Every strategy adjusts based on where you are relative to your planned retirement date — not your age:
Life stage | When it applies |
Accumulation | 20+ years to retirement |
Build | 10–19 years to retirement |
Transition | 5–9 years to retirement |
Retirement zone | The five years on either side of your retirement date |
Distribution | 5+ years into retirement |
An early retiree moves through these stages earlier, a late retiree later. As your plan crosses from one stage to the next, the modeled allocation shifts gradually rather than jumping overnight.
Why the Retirement Zone matters. The years right around your retirement date carry the most risk — a downturn then does more damage than one earlier or later, because you're beginning to draw from your accounts instead of adding to them. This is exactly where every allocation model works hardest, shifting most decisively toward fixed income and cash to help protect what you've built when protection matters most.
How to use it
Start with your Risk Profile. The Explorer reads your saved result from the risk tolerance survey (Account Settings → Risk Profile) — if you haven't taken it yet, the Explorer will prompt you first. You can retake it any time; your most recent result is always used. [Confirm whether the survey is required or optional to proceed ⚠]
Compare your matched strategy against its more conservative and more aggressive neighbors, then explore any other strategy you're curious about.
Compare a strategy's projected outcomes against your current plan to see what a life-stage-aware approach could change.
Watch how the allocation curve bends around your retirement age — it's a picture of how the strategy responds to sequence-of-returns risk.
Share feedback! This is a Beta, and what you tell us shapes what we build next.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Explorer change my plan? No. In this Beta, the Explorer is comparison-only — your accounts, rate assumptions, and projections are untouched. Applying an allocation model to your plan is coming soon, and when it arrives, it will always be your choice.
Does Boldin move or manage my money? Never. Allocation Explorer is a modeling tool. Your actual accounts at your bank or brokerage are always untouched.
Why do the Explorer's projections differ from my forecast? Your plan uses the rates of return you've set on each account. The Explorer models an allocation strategy instead — one blended, professionally constructed mix whose return and risk adjust by life stage. If your own assumptions are more optimistic than the strategy's expected returns, the Explorer's projected balances can come in lower. That doesn't mean the strategy is worse — it means the comparison uses researched, stress-tested return estimates rather than an entered assumption. The exact rates, and how they compare to Boldin's current model portfolios, are in the technical details below.
Which outcomes does the Explorer compare? The Explorer runs on average expected returns for each model portfolio. It doesn't have optimistic or pessimistic variants in this release.
Does the risk tolerance survey decide my strategy? No. It points to a risk profile as a starting point. You choose what to explore.
What's coming next? Apply to Plan is the headline: the ability to set an allocation model as your plan's investment assumption, replacing per-account rates of return. We're also planning the ability to exclude specific accounts from an allocation model.
Is this investment advice? No. The allocation models show you the consequences of investing a given way — it doesn't tell you how to invest. It's an educational modeling tool, and any decisions about your actual investments are yours to make.
What the Explorer forecasts— and what it doesn't
The Explorer forecasts each strategy's expected returns, volatility, and the automatic allocation shift across your plan horizon, and compares the results to your current plan.
Explorer projections run on average expected returns for each model portfolio.
It does not recommend investments, change your plan, rebalance accounts, or execute anything.
All projections are educational estimates, not guarantees of future results.
View Allocation Explorer: A Deeper Look see the allocations, rates, and methodology behind each strategy.
Questions we didn't answer here? Ask Boldin AI in the planner, or reach out to support — we're happy to go deeper.