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First, we need the information to help figure out how much money you could make in retirement. If you have a DC plan or intend to make money by selling your house, we need to know so that we can add that money to your retirement income.

Second, the more information you give us on the types of investments you own, the better we can match up the funds in your DC plan with your investment needs. The program looks at what you already own when choosing your funds. For example, if you already have lots of money invested in a large-company mutual fund outside of your DC plan, our recommendations will go lighter on large-company funds within your DC plan.

We call a plan Conservative, Balanced, or Aggressive depending on how much money you have invested in stocks, because stocks bounce around more than other investments. Conservative plans have less than 35% of your money invested in stocks. Balanced plans have between 35% and 65% in stocks, and Aggressive plans have more than 65% in stocks.

The Bear Market Simulations you encounter after picking a plan helps you decide if you can handle the short-term losses that your investment plan may experience. If not, choose a more conservative plan.

As a group, stocks generally earn more over the long run than bonds or cash investments, but they can also lose more. So, the more you invest in stocks, the wider your range of expected income becomes. That's why the bars in the What If Tool get wider as you invest more in stocks. Also, because of their risks, the more you invest in stocks, the more likely your investments are to jump around from day to day or year to year.

For investment style, we first divide stocks into two groups, large-cap stocks and small/medium-cap stocks, based on their capitalization ('cap'), or total value of their stock. Then we divide the stocks into growth stocks--fast growing companies whose stocks are generally expensive--or value stocks, which might not be growing as fast, but whose stock is selling for less than the fund thinks it is worth. Combining these, you get four investment styles for U.S. stocks: Large-Cap Growth, Large-Cap Value, Small/Mid-Cap Growth and Small/Mid-Cap Value. A fifth Investment Style, International Stocks, covers all the stocks of companies outside the U.S.

Key Industry Sector is a little simpler. It groups stocks by what the companies do. For instance, the financial sector is made up of financial companies such as banks.

When we pick your funds, we spread your money among the different Stock Investment Styles and Key Stock Sectors. That makes your overall plan less risky while still keeping the amount of money you can expect to make relatively high.

If a calculator is showing up, but not working, try these steps. First, reenter the information you want to use. If that fails, reload the page and try again. If the calculator still does not work, contact our support staff at clearfuture@morningstar.com.