How to read the result
The key number in each card is how much money would be left at the lowest point. Not a percentage but an amount: that is what you would have seen in your broker app. Next to it — how many months the fall lasted and how long you would have waited to see your starting amount again.
On the chart the dashed line is the amount invested, and the red area is the time you spent in the red.
What these five crises teach
- A fall lasts a long time. After 2000 and 2007 stocks took years, not months, to get back.
- Calm assets do not always help. In 2008 bonds and gold softened the blow. In 2022 bonds fell together with stocks.
- Crypto is a separate risk. It can lose three quarters of its price even when the stock market is calm.
- A loss becomes real only when you sell. In all five cases, those who did not sell eventually got their money back.
What to do if the numbers scare you
- Raise the share of calm assets — the Splitter helps pick weights for your goal and age.
- Keep 3–6 months of living costs apart from investments so you never have to sell at the bottom. See the three buckets guide.
- Do not put money you will need in the next few years into stocks or crypto.
- Add regularly: buying during a fall speeds up the recovery.
Past performance does not guarantee future results. Educational purposes only, not investment advice.