Calendar-year returns hide how bad a crash actually felt while it was happening. 2020 looks fine in the year-end numbers because the market recovered by December, even though the C Fund fell 34% in five weeks. This tool uses the exact peak-to-trough decline from TSP's own daily price history for four real historical events, applied to whatever allocation you enter, so you can see the real drop and how long it actually took to recover.
Total: 100%
| Fund | G | F | C | S | I |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decline | — | — | — | — | — |
Peak and trough are the exact highest and lowest closing prices within each event window, computed from TSP's own daily share price history. The G-Fund comparison assumes the G Fund's long-run average rate continues at roughly its historical pace. This is an educational illustration, not a prediction or investment advice.
The temptation during a crash is to move everything to the G Fund to "stop the bleeding." The data above shows the real cost of that instinct: the G Fund's slow, steady rate means money moved there during a crash and left there stays roughly flat, while the funds that actually fell also did almost all of their recovering. The bounce back tends to be concentrated in the same volatile stock funds that caused the drop. Missing that bounce because you'd already moved to safety is what turns a temporary paper loss into a permanent one.
This isn't a case for never touching your allocation. It's a case for knowing, before a crash happens, roughly how far your specific mix could fall and how long recovery has historically taken, so a real decline doesn't feel like new information.