−30%
the drop
+43%
gain needed to recover
A loss needs a bigger percentage gain just to break even — and the gap explodes as losses deepen.
Lose half your water crossing a desert and you don’t need half again — you need to double what’s left to refill the bottle.
Timing matters too: a big loss early in retirement, while you’re also withdrawing cash, can do lasting damage — a trap known as sequence-of-returns risk.[1]
This is why steadier mixes can beat flashier ones for someone spending their savings: avoiding deep holes is worth more than chasing the highest average.
Where these numbers come from
Finisdom shows the worst drawdown for any mix and runs it through real crashes — the dot-com bust, 2008, and 2020 — so you see the deepest holes before they happen.
Stress-test a mix in the LabPart of the Finisdom app — sign in to open it.