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Run your IRA through both sequences

Same IRA balance. Same average market return. Same Uniform Lifetime Table. The only difference: bad years at the START of RMDs vs at the END. The IRS-forced selling does the rest of the damage.

Traditional IRA / 401(k) Balance

Pre-tax balance at RMD start

Current Age

RMDs begin at 73, or 75 if born 1960 or later (SECURE 2.0)

Plan-To Age

How long the IRA must last

Average Annual Return

Both scenarios share this exact mean

Bad-Year Severity

Depth of the worst years

Extra Lifestyle Withdrawal

$ per year ABOVE the RMD (if needed for lifestyle)

Cost of bad RMD timing

n/a

Bad timing

Bear market during EARLY RMD years

n/a

Good timing

Bear market at the END (or never)

n/a

Why this is worse than ordinary sequence risk

Pre-RMD retirees can pause withdrawals during a crash: live on cash, defer the IRA, wait it out. Once RMDs start, the IRS gives no such option. Miss an RMD and the excise tax is 25% of the amount you should have taken, or 10% if you fix it inside the correction window (IRS RMD FAQs, checked October 10, 2026). So you sell, into the loss, and the dollar-weighted return you actually experience is far worse than the published market average.

The fix is timing, not a product. Hold the next few years of RMDs in cash or a short Treasury ladder so a crash doesn't force a sale at the bottom, or convert to Roth before your RMD age to shrink or remove the RMD.

Loss-lock highlighted in red. Every year shown in red below is a year where you were forced to sell during a market loss. Those shares are gone, so their future recovery doesn't help you. This is the structural reason that even “safe” 60/40 portfolios bleed faster than expected in retirement.

Age	Divisor	RMD %	BAD-FIRST balance	RMD taken	Return	GOOD-FIRST balance	RMD taken	Return

Want this on your real IRA?

Hans will pull your account balance and run the actual SECURE Act 2.0 RMD schedule against 100+ historical sequences, then show you where the lock-in risk concentrates and what moves (Roth conversion, cash buffer, Treasury ladder, QCDs) actually fix it. Free educational math help from a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

The IRS doesn't care if the market crashed. You still have to take your RMD.