Historical stress test

What would 1929 do to your money?

Every downturn feels unprecedented while it is happening. None of them are. Pick one of eight documented US recessions and replay its actual market drawdown, unemployment, and recovery timeline against your portfolio and cash position.

Your position

Invested portfolioBrokerage, 401(k), IRA — everything in markets.Share in stocksThe rest is treated as holding its value.Liquid savingsCash you can reach without selling investments.Monthly essentialsHousing, food, insurance, minimum payments.

Pick your storm

The Great Recession. A housing collapse became a global credit freeze. Nearly nine million jobs disappeared, home prices fell by a third, and the median spell of unemployment stretched past six months.

How to read this

The point is not prediction — it is calibration. A 57% drawdown sounds abstract until it is your account balance; a five-year recovery sounds survivable until you check it against your cash runway. The people who got destroyed in past recessions were mostly the ones forced to sell assets or take on debt at the bottom. Runway is what removes the word “forced.”

This is a planning model, not investment advice. Past drawdowns do not bound future ones, non-stock assets can also fall, and the model ignores taxes, dividends, and contributions made during the downturn (which historically helped a lot).