Drawdown recovery calculator
The gain it takes to get back to your peak after a loss, how deep a losing streak goes at your risk per trade, and how many winning trades the way back takes.
Start from
Of the account at the time.
Your usual risk to reward.
- Drawdown
- 20%
- Gain to recover
- +25%
- Winning trades back
- 12
- Account at the bottom
- $8,000
- Money lost
- $2,000
- Risk per trade at the bottom
- $80.00
Gain needed to get back
+25%
A 20% drop needs a 25% gain, because the climb starts from a smaller account. At 1% risk and 1:2, that is 12 winning trades in a row, or more with losses in between.
The formulas
Gain to recover = drawdown ÷ (1 − drawdown)
Drawdown after n losses = 1 − (1 − risk per trade)ⁿ
Losses and gains are percentages of different amounts. A 50% loss is half of the peak; the recovery is a percentage of the smaller account that is left, so it has to be bigger. The deeper the drawdown, the faster the gap widens.
Gain needed to recover a drawdown
| Drawdown | Gain to get back |
|---|---|
| −5% | +5.3% |
| −10% | +11.1% |
| −15% | +17.6% |
| −20% | +25% |
| −25% | +33.3% |
| −30% | +42.9% |
| −40% | +66.7% |
| −50% | +100% |
| −60% | +150% |
| −75% | +300% |
| −90% | +900% |
How deep losing streaks go
| Losses in a row | 0.5% risk | 1% risk | 2% risk | 5% risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | −2.5% | −4.9% | −9.6% | −22.6% |
| 10 | −4.9% | −9.6% | −18.3% | −40.1% |
| 15 | −7.2% | −14% | −26.1% | −53.7% |
| 20 | −9.5% | −18.2% | −33.2% | −64.2% |
The same streak at 5% risk digs a hole roughly four times deeper than at 1%, and a hole that deep needs a much bigger climb. That is the whole case for small risk per trade: it keeps the bad stretches you will certainly meet on the shallow side of this table.