Same thirty returns. Reshuffled. The corpus tells two stories.
One crore start. Seven lakh per year drawdown. Same set of returns deployed in two different orders. Without flows the ending balance is identical. Once you start withdrawing, the order is the strategy.
Corpus start
100 lakh
One crore at age 50. Early retirement target.
Withdrawal pa
7 lakh
Seven pct of starting corpus. Year-end. Flat for clarity.
Returns set
30 yrs
Three drops minus 20 minus 10 minus 5 plus twenty seven years at 12 pct.
Checkpoint
Note
Seq A . bad first
Seq B . bad last
Yr 3
After three drop years (A) or three growth years (B)
48.77L
116.87L
Yr 10
A is grinding sideways near steady state. B is compounding cleanly.
37.18L
187.74L
Yr 19
A runs out. Eleven planned retirement years left, zero rupees to fund them.
0
417.20L
Yr 30
B absorbs its three drop years from a much taller balance. Plenty left.
0
628.02L
Arithmetic mean
9.63 pct in both. Same thirty annual returns. Reordered.
No flows ending balance
14.58 cr in both. Without withdrawals, order does not matter.
With flows gap
Infinite. Bankrupt vs 6.28 cr. Order is the entire story.
Illustrative compounding on a Rs 100 lakh corpus with Rs 7 lakh year-end withdrawals, no inflation, no taxes for clarity. Past performance . backtest only . not a guarantee. The point is the order, not the exact rupee.