THE CRASH LAB
Crash your portfolio. Before the market does.
Replay 2008, the dot-com bust, COVID, or the 2022 rate shock on your own holdings, or design a crash yourself. See what you would lose, how long it could take to recover, and what it does to your FIRE date.
Know your number.
Hold your nerve.
Your portfolio
The crash
A banking crisis that took stocks and property down while bonds and gold held up.
Recovery and FIRE assumptions
Your portfolio would fall from $100,000 to $55,900, a loss of $44,100 (−44.1%).
Where the damage lands
| Holding | Before | Change | After | Loss |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VTIUS stocks | $50,000 | −55.0% | $22,500 | −$27,500 |
| VXUSInternational stocks | $30,000 | −60.0% | $12,000 | −$18,000 |
| BNDBonds | $20,000 | +7.0% | $21,400 | +$1,400 |
By asset class
| Asset class | Share today | Change | Share of the loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| US stocks | 50% | −55.0% | 62% |
| International stocks | 30% | −60.0% | 41% |
| Bonds | 20% | +7.0% | — |
The road back
Dashed green shows where you would have been without the crash. It stays ahead of the crash line, because the loss compounds too. For reference, the S&P 500 with dividends took about 4 years 10 months from its peak to regain its old high after this crash. Recovery time is never guaranteed.
What it does to your FIRE plan
Behind the numbers
Each historical crash uses the peak and trough dates of the S&P 500. Class drops are measured over that window from index and fund prices (dividend-adjusted where available), rounded to the nearest percent. They are labelled Measured. Estimated drops are rounded from public records, and Assumed drops are used where an asset did not yet exist (Bitcoin before 2010) or the scenario is hypothetical. Every drop is editable.
When a ticker is an ETF that already traded at the peak, its own price change over that window replaces the class drop, using dividend-adjusted prices from Yahoo Finance. Stocks, mutual funds, and newer ETFs use their asset class drop. Holdings are never saved or sent anywhere except the ticker symbols used for the price lookup.
Recovery counts the months until your balance grows back to its pre-crash value at a constant return, with month-end contributions. It ignores the years of sideways or falling markets that can follow a crash. The FIRE date uses the same constant-return projection as the FIRE calculator with your post-crash balance. Real markets will not follow a straight line. This is an illustration, not a forecast or financial advice.