Risk tool

Drawdown Recovery Calculator

Enter a drawdown and see the gain required just to get back to break-even. The math is unforgiving — and seeing it is the fastest argument for tighter loss control.

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Free — no login
Deterministic math
No signals, no advice

Map.Trade does not provide buy/sell signals, execute trades, or manage funds. It helps traders review historical performance, risk, and behavior.

Drawdown → gain to recoverIllustrative

10% drawdown+11.1%

20% drawdown+25%

30% drawdown+42.9%

50% drawdown+100%

90% drawdown+900%

Drawdown

How far the account is down from its peak.

Gain needed to break even

25.00%

after a 20.0% drawdown

Deep drawdowns need disproportionately large gains to recover.

Recovery is not symmetric with loss. Every percent you let a drawdown deepen demands a disproportionately larger gain to undo — which is why capping losses early beats chasing comebacks.

Drawdown vs. recovery math

Formula

To recover a drawdown of d, you need a gain of d ÷ (1 − d), measured on the smaller balance left after the loss. That denominator is why deep losses spiral.

Worked examples

Examples

A 10% loss needs ~11.1% to break even. 20% → 25%. 50% → 100%. A 90% loss needs a 900% gain — practically unrecoverable.

Why loss control matters more than big wins

Because recovery scales non-linearly, the trader who caps losses at a few percent is mathematically far ahead of the one who books big wins between deep drawdowns. Small, controlled losses keep the recovery math on your side and your decision-making calm.

Review your real drawdowns

Import your history into Map.Trade to see your actual drawdowns, how long recovery took, and which behaviours — oversizing, revenge trades, no stop — deepened them, so the next one is shallower by design.

Cap losses early vs. let them run

	Cap early	Let it run
Typical drawdown	Shallow and frequent	Rare but deep
Gain needed to recover	Small and achievable	Large and pressuring
Decision quality	Calm — capital intact	Pressured — chasing back
Account survival	High	Fragile