Efficient Frontier
Visualize the best return for every level of risk.
Educational use only, not investment advice. Results are hypothetical.Read full disclaimer
This tool is for educational and informational purposes only and does not provide financial, investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Results are hypothetical and based on historical data and assumptions that may be inaccurate. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a licensed professional before making investment decisions.
Supports U.S.-listed stocks & ETFs, plus Canadian listings (e.g. SHOP.TO for TSX, .V for TSX Venture) and London Stock Exchange listings (e.g. VOD.L) with their venue suffix, subject to shared price history.
Holdings in another currency convert at daily exchange rates.
Uses the last 10 years of monthly returns, dividends included, with at most 70% in any one fund. How these were chosen
- • Analysis dates are loading. Please wait a moment.
What is the Efficient Frontier?
Explore the risk/return trade-off across every mix of your chosen assets. The frontier curve shows the highest expected return achievable at each level of risk, with the minimum-volatility and maximum-Sharpe portfolios highlighted.
The efficient frontier, from Modern Portfolio Theory, is the set of portfolios offering the highest expected return at each level of risk. This tool estimates expected returns and a covariance matrix from history, then traces the frontier with a constrained mean-variance optimizer, plotting your assets, a cloud of random portfolios, the minimum-volatility portfolio, and the maximum-Sharpe portfolio, with downloadable frontier data.
How to use it
- 1Enter the assets you want to optimize across (e.g. VTI, VEA, VWO, BND, GLD).
- 2Optionally pick a benchmark to plot beside the curve. The history window, estimates and weight limits are set for you: the last 10 years, at most 40% per asset.
- 3Run it to plot the efficient frontier alongside your assets, with the minimum-volatility and maximum-Sharpe portfolios marked, and the frontier data available to download.
What you'll get
- Efficient frontier curve
- Min-volatility & max-Sharpe portfolios
- Asset and random-portfolio scatter
- Frontier table + CSV
How the Efficient Frontier works
The frontier is traced by sweeping a risk-aversion parameter and solving a long-only mean-variance problem with at most 40% in any one asset, on the last 10 years of monthly total returns. These settings are fixed: in walk-forward tests on random portfolios no other window or estimate beat them reliably.