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Sequence of Returns Risk · Retirement Planning
Explore your retirement financial decisions before you live them.
Most retirement plans fail not because of poor average returns — but because of timing. A market decline in the first decade of retirement can permanently alter the outcome, even if markets recover fully. This is called Sequence of Returns Risk (SORR), and it is the most underestimated risk in retirement planning. This tool reveals how sensitive your plan is to it — and what you can do about it.
Why the early years matter most
When you retire, you begin withdrawing from your portfolio. If markets fall early, you sell assets at depressed prices — permanently reducing the base that future growth compounds on.
The asymmetry of timing
Two retirees with identical average returns can have completely different outcomes depending on when those returns occurred. A crash at retirement is far more damaging than the same crash a decade later.
What this means for capital
Understanding your SORR exposure helps you make better decisions earlier in life — including when it may be safe to deploy capital more aggressively, knowing your retirement floor is protected.
Your data stays in your browser. This tool does not store, transmit, or save any information you enter. All calculations run locally. When AI guidance is added in a future version, you will be explicitly asked before any data is shared with an AI provider.
Product Roadmap
Retirement Lab is built around one idea: that understanding SORR leads to better retirement decisions, and better retirement decisions lead to more confident capital deployment earlier in life.
Retirement Lab is an independent thinking tool. It does not provide financial advice. All projections are illustrative and based on Monte Carlo simulation.