Drawdown recovery calculator
Losses and gains are not symmetric. Down 50% needs a 100% gain to get back — this shows you the real cost of a drawdown and the fastest safe route out.
Losses and gains are not symmetrical. See exactly how many winning trades it takes to get back to even.
A 50% loss needs a 100% gain. A 75% loss needs 300%. This is why capping your daily loss matters far more than finding a better strategy.
What the drawdown recovery calculator does
The cruellest arithmetic in trading is that recovery is always harder than the loss. A 20% drawdown needs a 25% gain. A 50% drawdown needs a 100% gain. A 75% drawdown needs a 300% gain, which for most accounts means it is over.
The calculator converts your drawdown into the required gain, then translates that into trades: how many net wins at your stake and payout, and how many trading days at your current pace.
The most valuable output is emotional. Seeing that a 40% drawdown needs 67% back — roughly two months of good trading — is usually enough to stop the revenge trading that turns 40% into 70%.
The formula, explained
RequiredGain% = ( Drawdown% ÷ (100 − Drawdown%) ) × 100
- Drawdown%
- — how far below the peak the balance sits
- Net wins needed
- — RequiredGain ÷ (Stake × Payout ÷ Balance), assuming flat staking
- Days needed
- — net wins ÷ your average net wins per session
Cut the stake while recovering. Recovering at your pre-drawdown stake size means one more bad streak ends the account; recovering at 60% of it takes longer but survives.
A real set of numbers
| Drawdown | Balance | Gain needed | Net wins at $10 / 85% payout | Sessions at +3 net wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | $900 | 11.1% | 12 | 4 |
| 20% | $800 | 25.0% | 24 | 8 |
| 30% | $700 | 42.9% | 36 | 12 |
| 50% | $500 | 100.0% | 59 | 20 |
| 70% | $300 | 233.3% | 83 | 28 |
The jump from 30% to 50% down more than doubles the recovery work. Protecting the account below a 20% drawdown is worth more than any entry technique.
When to use it — and when not to
Use it when
- You are in a drawdown and need a plan rather than a feeling.
- Setting a maximum drawdown rule (most traders should stop and review at 20%).
- Deciding whether to reduce stake size during a bad run.
- Judging whether to top up the account or rebuild from the current balance.
Don't rely on it when
- You use it to justify increasing stakes to 'recover faster'. That is the exact behaviour that converts recoverable drawdowns into blown accounts.
Drawdown recovery calculator questions, answered
+What gain do I need after a 50% loss?
100%. You have to double the remaining balance just to return to where you started, which is why maximum drawdown rules matter more than entry rules.
+Should I lower my stake in a drawdown?
Yes. Reducing to roughly half your normal risk until you have recovered a third of the drawdown is a common professional rule. It lengthens recovery but makes it survivable.
+What drawdown should make me stop trading?
20% is a sensible review point and 30% a hard stop for most retail accounts. Stop, review the journal, and only resume once you can point to what changed.
+Is it better to deposit more or rebuild?
Rebuild first. Depositing into an unfixed process just funds the same mistake at a larger scale.
Put the numbers to work
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