Drawdown Recovery Calculator
Losses and the gains needed to undo them are not symmetrical, and the gap widens fast. A 50% loss needs a 100% gain to get back to even. Enter your drawdown to see the real cost, and what it means in months at your usual rate of return.
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Also searched as: loss recovery calculator, percentage gain to recover loss, trading drawdown calculator, breakeven after loss calculator
At 3% month, getting back to ₹500,000 takes about 9.7 months of uninterrupted gains — assuming you do not lose anything further along the way.
What is a trading drawdown?
A drawdown is the fall from your account's highest point to its lowest point before it makes a new high. If ₹5,00,000 grows to ₹6,00,000 and then falls to ₹4,50,000, the drawdown is 25% measured from the ₹6,00,000 peak — not from where you started.
Drawdowns are unavoidable. Every strategy has losing periods, and the question is never whether one arrives but whether your position sizing lets you trade through it.
How to use this drawdown recovery calculator
- Enter your starting capital — the peak value before the losses began.
- Enter the drawdown as a percentage of that peak.
- Enter the return you realistically earn per month, week or day, and pick the matching period.
The result shows the percentage gain needed to return to the peak, the rupee amount still to be made back, and how long that takes at your usual rate — assuming no further losses along the way, which is itself an optimistic assumption.
Why recovery is harder than the loss
Required gain % = Drawdown % ÷ (100 − Drawdown %) × 100The asymmetry catches people out because both numbers are percentages, so they feel comparable. They are not — they are percentages of different amounts. The loss is measured against what you had; the recovery is measured against the smaller amount you have left.
Lose 50% of ₹10,00,000 and you hold ₹5,00,000. Getting back to ₹10,00,000 means doubling — a 100% gain. The gap widens fast, which is the entire argument for small position sizes.
Recovery at a glance
| Drawdown | Gain needed to recover |
|---|---|
| 10% | 11.1% |
| 20% | 25.0% |
| 25% | 33.3% |
| 30% | 42.9% |
| 40% | 66.7% |
| 50% | 100.0% |
| 60% | 150.0% |
| 75% | 300.0% |
| 90% | 900.0% |
What this means for position sizing
Risking 1% per trade, ten consecutive losses leave you about 9.6% down and needing roughly 10.6% to recover — unpleasant but ordinary. Risking 5%, the same ten losses leave you 40% down and needing 66.7%. Same strategy, same losing streak; one is a bad month, the other can end an account.
Setting a drawdown limit in advance
Many traders set a hard monthly limit of 6% to 10% and stop trading for the month when it is hit. The specific number matters less than deciding it while you are calm. Mid-drawdown, the instinct is always to trade bigger to make it back faster — which is precisely the move this table argues against.
Frequently asked questions
Because the gain is calculated on the smaller amount that is left. ₹10,00,000 down 50% is ₹5,00,000; getting back to ₹10,00,000 from there means doubling, which is a 100% gain. The percentage needed rises much faster than the percentage lost.
A calculator tells you the plan. A journal tells you if you followed it.
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