Drawdown recovery calculator
Enter a loss as a percentage and it returns the gain you need to get back to where you started. The two numbers are never the same, and the gap grows much faster than most people expect.
Drawdown Recovery
Losses and gains are not symmetrical
Gain needed = drawdown ÷ (1 − drawdown)
| If you lose… | You need this to get back to even |
|---|---|
| 10% | +11% |
| 20% | +25% |
| 50% | +100% |
| 70% | +233% |
| 90% | +900% |
Lose half your account and you have to double what is left just to break even. That is not a motivational line, it is arithmetic — and it is the entire argument for keeping risk small and fixed.
What to do with the number
Decide your maximum acceptable drawdown before you trade, then work backwards to a risk per trade that makes reaching it unlikely. A trader risking 1% per trade needs a long, ugly losing streak to reach a 20% hole. A trader risking 10% can get there in three trades.
Questions people ask
Why does a 50% loss need a 100% gain?
Because the gain is calculated on the smaller balance that is left. Losing half of $10,000 leaves $5,000, and turning $5,000 back into $10,000 is a 100% gain.
What is an acceptable drawdown?
That is a personal limit, but the arithmetic argues for setting it low. Beyond roughly 30% the recovery required starts to outrun what most strategies produce in a reasonable time.
How do I avoid a deep drawdown?
Fix the risk per trade as a small percentage of the account, and size every position from that budget. A percentage automatically reduces the amount at risk as the account shrinks.
Is this the same as maximum drawdown?
This calculates the recovery needed from any given loss. Maximum drawdown is the largest peak-to-trough fall an account has actually experienced — feed that number in here to see what it cost you.
Keep the numbers after you close the tab
These calculators do the arithmetic once. The Trader's Edge journal is the same maths as a 64-page workbook plus a spreadsheet that sizes every position for you, and the strategy write-ups explain the reasoning behind all of it.