Still River Releases Tenth Paper in Series on Comprehensive Retirement Income Planning

Business Wire, May 15, 2006

HARVARD, Mass. -- Still River Retirement Planning Software, Inc. today released the latest paper in its series on retirement income planning, "Retirement Income Planning, Part 10: Risk Analysis and Calculation Methods" (http://www.StillRiverRetire.com/SRRPS_FinancialTopics.asp). This paper examines the benefits and flaws of deterministic vs. Monte Carlo and other stochastic models for computing and illustrating the financial risks that retirees face. It further explains how the two methods work, and suggests that some combination of both is preferable for retirement income planning, then looks at several possible mixed models.

"Models currently marketed as "Monte Carlo", or "stochastic", are actually mixed models. They use stochastic techniques for certain elements of the analysis, such as investment performance and mortality, but they don't take into account other kinds of risks or variations in life, such as future income tax laws or having a child or grandchild move back home as a dependent," noted Still River President, Chuck Yanikoski. "Life is so full of variety that the list of risks could be extended indefinitely, and we just don't have enough data to handle them all stochastically."

"The main advantage of stochastic models is that they can deal with certain risks - especially investment and mortality risks - in a relatively rigorous fashion. They are particularly powerful in answering simplified mathematical questions such as how much money a person can safely withdraw every year from a retirement nest egg. While deterministic models cannot measure risk as well as stochastic models, what they do particularly well is to educate and motivate the consumer by showing with a high degree of specificity what a "normal expectation" might look like, then show what the impact of a specific adverse circumstance looks like. "

Earlier this month, Still River released two new versions of RetirementWorks(R) II, the retirement income and distribution package introduced in October, 2005. The original version uses non-stochastic scenario testing. The new versions add further options: one uses Monte Carlo analysis to test financial plans under randomized mortality and investment experience, medical expense costs, long-term care requirements, and high inflation scenarios; the other combines Monte Carlo analysis with other stochastic modeling techniques to provide a faster computing model more suitable for internet use.

Still River Retirement Planning Software, Inc. is located in Harvard, MA. For more information, please visit our website at www.StillRiverRetire.com, call Chuck Yanikoski at 978-456-7971, or e-mail csy@StillRiverRetire.com.