What If You Retired in 1990? The 4% Rule, Backtested
A $1,000,000 60/40 portfolio, retiring in 1990 and spending $40,000/yr (inflation-adjusted), made it the full 30 years against real market history.
Year by year: the 4% plan
| Year | Age | Stocks | Bonds | 60/40 | Withdrawal | End balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 65 | −9% | +2% | −5% | $40,000 | $916,000 |
| 2 | 66 | +27% | +12% | +21% | $40,000 | $1,060,000 |
| 3 | 67 | +5% | +5% | +5% | $40,000 | $1,071,000 |
| 4 | 68 | +7% | +11% | +9% | $40,000 | $1,119,000 |
| 5 | 69 | −1% | −10% | −5% | $40,000 | $1,030,000 |
| 6 | 70 | +35% | +21% | +29% | $40,000 | $1,281,000 |
| 7 | 71 | +20% | −1% | +12% | $40,000 | $1,385,000 |
| 8 | 72 | +30% | +9% | +22% | $40,000 | $1,635,000 |
| 9 | 73 | +27% | +11% | +21% | $40,000 | $1,924,000 |
| 10 | 74 | +18% | −10% | +7% | $40,000 | $2,012,000 |
| 11 | 75 | −12% | +13% | −2% | $40,000 | $1,932,000 |
| 12 | 76 | −13% | +3% | −7% | $40,000 | $1,767,000 |
| 13 | 77 | −23% | +13% | −9% | $40,000 | $1,579,000 |
| 14 | 78 | +26% | +1% | +16% | $40,000 | $1,785,000 |
| 15 | 79 | +7% | +1% | +5% | $40,000 | $1,825,000 |
| 16 | 80 | +1% | −1% | 0% | $40,000 | $1,789,000 |
| 17 | 81 | +13% | −1% | +7% | $40,000 | $1,878,000 |
| 18 | 82 | +1% | +6% | +3% | $40,000 | $1,894,000 |
| 19 | 83 | −37% | +18% | −15% | $40,000 | $1,576,000 |
| 20 | 84 | +24% | −13% | +9% | $40,000 | $1,677,000 |
| 21 | 85 | +13% | +6% | +10% | $40,000 | $1,804,000 |
| 22 | 86 | −1% | +14% | +5% | $40,000 | $1,852,000 |
| 23 | 87 | +14% | +1% | +9% | $40,000 | $1,971,000 |
| 24 | 88 | +30% | −11% | +14% | $40,000 | $2,194,000 |
| 25 | 89 | +12% | +9% | +11% | $40,000 | $2,387,000 |
| 26 | 90 | −1% | −1% | −1% | $40,000 | $2,323,000 |
| 27 | 91 | +10% | −1% | +6% | $40,000 | $2,411,000 |
| 28 | 92 | +19% | 0% | +11% | $40,000 | $2,641,000 |
| 29 | 93 | −6% | −2% | −4% | $40,000 | $2,487,000 |
| 30 | 94 | +29% | +7% | +20% | $40,000 | $2,941,000 |
What this sequence teaches
Over the first five years of this retirement (1990–1994), a 60/40 portfolio's cumulative real return was +26%. The single worst year in the tested window was 2008, when the 60/40 blend returned −15% in real terms.
Under the 4% withdrawal plan, the real portfolio balance bottomed out at $916,000 in 1990, before recovering in later years.
With a moderate first five years, this plan's outcome hinged more on the middle and later years of the sequence than on the start — a reminder that sequence risk is about the whole path, not just the opening years.
What RetireOdds actually simulates
The table above is the transparent skeleton: one portfolio, one withdrawal rule, one sequence of real historical returns, before taxes. It's meant to be checkable by hand.
Inside RetireOdds, the same year-by-year loop runs against your plan and adds what a real retirement actually has to deal with: federal and state taxes with account buckets (taxable, tax-deferred, Roth) drawn in order, Social Security claiming and its partial taxability, Required Minimum Distributions, healthcare costs (ACA subsidies before 65, Medicare and IRMAA after), Roth conversions, and one-time life events.
It also runs three engines instead of one: Monte Carlo (1,000 lognormal real-return paths calibrated to this same 1928–2023 dataset), a block bootstrap of this history, and the historical replay shown on this page. A plan fails if any year is unfunded — including the last one.
Read the full method on /methodology, walk through the product in the user guide, or try your own numbers in the free calculator.
Returns are approximate, rounded, planning-grade real (inflation-adjusted) totals for US large-cap stocks and 10-year Treasuries — this is educational modeling, not financial advice.