Sequence of Returns Risk Calculator — Does Your Retirement Survive?

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Sequence of Returns

Sequence of Returns Risk

See how the order of good and bad years dramatically changes your retirement outcome — even when the average return is identical.

Starting Portfolio

Annual Withdrawal

Simulation Length30 years

Average Annual Return7.0%

Early Crash Severity−20%

End Portfolio — All 3 Scenarios

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Good Early

Strong returns in early retirement

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Low: —

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Steady

Same average return every year

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Low: —

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Bad Early

Market crashes right at retirement

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Low: —

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Portfolio Value Over Time — All 3 Scenarios

Illustrative scenarios. Same avg. return, different sequence. Not financial advice. 🏛 Predictable Income

Sequence of Returns Risk Calculator

The Sequence of Returns Risk calculator shows you something counterintuitive but critically important: two retirees can have identical average investment returns over 30 years and end up with wildly different outcomes depending purely on when the good and bad years happen to fall. If a market crash hits in your first few years of retirement, while you are actively withdrawing from your portfolio, the damage is permanent in a way that a crash later in retirement simply is not. This calculator lets you model three scenarios side by side, good returns early, steady returns throughout, and bad returns early, using the same average annual return across all three, so you can see exactly how much the sequence of those returns matters to your long-term financial security.