Drawdown Recovery Calculator
Losses and gains aren't symmetric. Set how far you've fallen below your peak and see the exact percentage gain you need to climb back to break-even.
How far below your peak you are.
A 20% loss needs a 25.0% gain to get back to break-even.
For educational purposes only. Read our risk warning before trading.
Why Recovery Outpaces the Loss
A drawdown shrinks the capital you have left to grow from. A 20% loss leaves you with 80% of your peak, so you must grow that smaller base back to 100% — and the gain needed is always larger than the loss that caused it. The deeper the hole, the steeper the climb.
Loss vs. Gain Needed to Recover
| Drawdown (loss) | Gain needed to recover |
|---|---|
| 5% | 5.3% |
| 10% | 11.1% |
| 20% | 25% |
| 25% | 33.3% |
| 30% | 42.9% |
| 40% | 66.7% |
| 50% | 100% |
| 75% | 300% |
| 90% | 900% |
Frequently Asked Questions
Because the gain is measured against a smaller base. A 50% loss halves your capital, so you must double what's left — a 100% gain — just to return to where you started. The percentages only match for tiny moves; they diverge fast as the loss grows.
The required recovery accelerates non-linearly. A 25% loss needs a 33% gain, but a 75% loss needs a 300% gain — quadrupling your remaining capital. This is exactly why capital preservation and tight drawdown control matter more than chasing oversized wins.
Risk a small, fixed fraction of your account per trade, use a stop-loss on every position, and avoid recovery tactics like martingale or all-in compounding — doubling down after a loss can deepen a drawdown into one that's mathematically very hard to climb out of. Smaller, capped losses keep the required recovery within reach.
Not quite. ROI is your total return over a period. This tool isolates one piece of it: the return needed purely to undo a drawdown and get back to break-even. Any gain beyond that figure is the point where you start making real, new profit.
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