I've also been obsessed with Firecalc. Rediscovered this thread last night and had a thought.
If we look at the real returns (after inflation), the performance from 1975-2012 is 4.76% CAGR, 6.84% SD. While that reflects the same overall 4% inflation rate in the CAGR that MachineGhost references, the SD is a little lower. I assume this is because PP performance is certainly not random relative to inflation -- the gold responds quite strongly. As a result, the other thing I find fascinating is that the real returns are quite consistent across a variety of timeframes:
CAGR since 1975 is 8.81 nominal, 4.76 real
CAGR since 1990 is 7.56 nominal, 5.03 real
So here's the thing -- if you use the PP
real return numbers in Firecalc and set inflation to zero accordingly, not only do I think that reflects performance more accurately, but also it appears to improve results slightly. (Note that Firecalc can give vastly different results run-to-run with the random number generator, so run it several times to see the range).
Unless, of course, I'm doing it all wrong.
TL;DR : Try the PP real returns as I think they're more appropriate for the tool. 4.76% CAGR, 6.84% SD, 0% inflation
[Edited for clarity]
