HELP DESIGN OUR NEXT UPDATE
Deciding on design and features for any software always benefits from getting the users involved. In this post we’ll give a quick update on the Studio, our online charting environment, before passing the reins over to you and asking for your input on the first of many design questions we will be posing.
The ESG (Economic Scenario Generator) dashboard helps our clients understand the nature of the simulations that we/they have generated. What features does it include? Does it capture your views correctly so that you can use it to test and compare different investment strategies?
Click here to play with a live version
In the bottom left of the dashboard we have a chart describing the probability distribution described by the thousands of simulated scenarios which were generated. What sort of returns might you expect? Are the tails suitably lumpy? Typical ‘bell curves’ are likely to underestimate the risks under adverse scenarios for many asset classes.
Now, this is one of our simpler charts but that doesn’t mean it’s obvious what works best for you. In particular, you may notice if you place your cursor over the chart you will get some information about the probability in the region of that point. The thing is, knowing this value isn’t helpful. Potentially more useful is seeing the cumulative probability. There are a few ways we could present this information and we’ve put together three examples.
The first, option A, shows the cumulative probability as a tooltip. This tells us the probability that the return is less than the highlighted return.
The second, option B, shows the complementary cumulative probability. This tells us the probability that the return is at least equal to the highlighted return.
The third, option C, shows both pieces of information at the same time.
We have put together a modified version of the dashboard so you can try the options out for yourself.