TheWizard
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Wow, that's amazing, Mr. Wizard ! so CREF Stock could still drop back to $1000 from $1600 ? or maybe just $1400-1500 .. what's the standard deviation that you observed?
You need first to understand that TIAA VAs have a 4% Assumed Investment Return (AIR).
So if I'm getting $1600 a month from a CREF Stock annuity now, then it has to increase in value by 4% for me to get the same $1600/month a year from now.
If CREF Stock's NAV (including dividends) decreases by 20% over the next twelve months, then my monthly payout for that month would be 0.80/1.04 = 0.7692
of my present amount, which is around $1230 for that month.
Fortunately, the broad stock market tends to go up around 10% per year, ON AVERAGE.
You can track CREF Stock, including dividends, by watching QCSTIX. I do it at Financial Times:
https://markets.ft.com/data/funds/tearsheet/historical?s=QCSTIX