Patent ID: 7562040

Claim:
A method for evaluating a financial plan including predetermined initial values of investments and one or more contribution or withdrawal amounts corresponding to selected times after the commencement of the financial plan, the method being implemented by a computer, the method comprising the steps of: calculating, by the computer, the change in a predetermined initial value of an investment over a time interval based on changes in value over a randomly-selected first historical time interval to obtain a changed investment value; updating, by the computer, the changed investment value based on one or more contribution or withdrawal amounts corresponding to the length of the time interval in accordance with the financial plan to obtain a further changed investment value; calculating, by the computer, the change in the further changed investment value over a second time interval based on changes over a second historical time interval, said second historical time interval being randomly-selected independent of said first historical time interval, to obtain a second changed investment value; updating, by the computer, the second changed investment value based on a selected contribution or withdrawal amount corresponding to the length of the second time interval in accordance with the financial plan; and repeating, by the computer, said steps of calculating and updating with respect to a third historical time interval and a fourth historical time interval, respectively, said third historical time interval and said fourth historical time interval being selected randomly.