A 20% Loss Needs A 25% Gain To Recover. A 50% Loss Needs A Full 100%. Most Traders Never See The Curve Until They're Already In It
The math behind a drawdown is not symmetric, and the gap between the loss and the required recovery widens faster than it looks.
You'll get the one formula every drawdown obeys, Required Gain % = Drawdown % divided by (100% minus Drawdown %), plus a full reference table from a 5% drawdown to a 90% one, so you can see the exact point where recovery stops being a normal-sized push and starts being a fundamentally different problem.
You'll get the specific sizing mistake that turns a recoverable drawdown into an unrecoverable one: trading bigger to "make it back faster," which is exactly backwards, since a bigger loss needs an even larger percentage gain, off an even smaller account, to recover from.
You'll get the same math running live in your browser twice: a one-screen calculator on this page, and a full recovery-progress tracker on your download page that logs your account value over time and shows you exactly how much of the required gain you've actually recovered.
This card won't tell you whether to keep trading through a drawdown.
It isn't trying to.
What it does is show you the actual curve your account is on, in numbers, before you decide what to do about it.
The math behind a drawdown is not symmetric, and the gap between the loss and the required recovery widens faster than it looks.Jason Parker, Founder of Trading Habits
Introducing The Drawdown Recovery Math Card.
The Drawdown Recovery Math Card
The one formula every drawdown obeys, and the exact point where recovery stops being a normal-sized push.
- Format PDF, 7 pages, print or read on screen
- Covers The required-gain formula, a full 5%-90% reference table, the bigger-size trap, and a recovery-time estimator
- Includes A live calculator on this page and a fuller recovery-progress tracker on your download page
- Delivery Instant download right after checkout
Personal account mechanics, firm-agnostic. Not a substitute for any specific broker's or prop firm's own rules.
What's Inside
What's Inside The Drawdown Recovery Math Card
- 01The asymmetric math behind every drawdown: why the percentage gain needed to recover is always larger than the percentage that was lost, and grows faster the deeper the drawdown goes.
- 02The exact formula: Required Gain % = Drawdown % ÷ (100% − Drawdown %), with a full reference table from a 5% drawdown to a 90% one.
- 03The bigger-size trap: why trading larger to "make it back faster" after a drawdown moves in exactly the wrong direction, since the required gain only grows as the account shrinks.
- 04The point on the curve where recovery inside a normal timeframe stops being realistic, and what that means for how an account should be managed past it.
- 05Two worked accounts: one that stopped at a 20% drawdown and recovered on a normal size, one that kept going to 50% and why that's a fundamentally different math problem, not just a bigger version of the first.
- 06A recovery-time estimator: given an assumed average monthly return, roughly how many months a given drawdown takes to fully recover.
- 07A blank worksheet for your own peak equity, current equity, and required recovery gain, plus a log grid for tracking account value over time.
- 08Two live versions of the same math online: a snapshot calculator on this page, a fuller recovery-progress tracker that logs your account value on your download page.
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Behind The Tool
Why The Math Isn't Symmetric
Why A 20% Loss Doesn't Need A 20% Gain
A drawdown reduces the base the recovery gain has to work from. A $10,000 account that falls 20% is left with $8,000, and $8,000 growing by 20% only reaches $9,600, still short of the original $10,000. It takes a 25% gain on that smaller $8,000 base to get back to even, because 25% of $8,000 is exactly the $2,000 that was lost. The formula behind every drawdown is Required Gain % = Drawdown % ÷ (100% − Drawdown %), and it applies at every size: a 10% drawdown needs an 11.1% gain, a 30% drawdown needs a 42.9% gain, and a 50% drawdown needs a full 100% gain just to reach breakeven.
That gap between the loss and the required recovery keeps widening the deeper the drawdown goes, which is the entire reason a large drawdown is a fundamentally different problem than a small one, not just a bigger version of the same problem.
Why Bigger Size Makes It Worse, Not Better
The instinct after a drawdown is often to trade larger, to make the loss back faster. The math moves in exactly the opposite direction: the required percentage gain only grows as the account shrinks, so the same dollar-sized mistake at a larger position size produces a deeper percentage drawdown, which in turn demands an even larger required gain off an even smaller base. A recovery plan built on a bigger position size is compounding the exact problem it's trying to solve.
The reference table and recovery-time estimator in this card are built to make that curve visible before a trader is deep enough into it to be deciding under pressure, the same reasoning behind every other reference card in this line.
Try It: Calculate Your Own Recovery Gain
Drawdown
0%
Amount Lost
$0
Required Gain
0%
Required Gain ($)
$0
Drawdown % = (Peak − Current) ÷ Peak. Required Gain % = Drawdown % ÷ (100% − Drawdown %). Required Gain $ = Peak − Current, the same dollar figure, expressed now as the percentage the smaller current balance has to gain. The full recovery-progress tracker on your download page logs your account value over time and shows how much of this required gain you've actually recovered so far.
Mechanics only. Nothing on this page or in the card is a live quote, a specific broker's or prop firm's own rulebook, or a recommendation of any particular position size or recovery timeline for your account.
Common Questions
Why does the calculator ask for peak and current equity instead of just a drawdown percentage?
Peak and current equity are the two numbers you actually have on your statement. The drawdown percentage and required gain are both derived from them, so entering the two dollar figures avoids a separate step where the drawdown percentage has to be worked out by hand first.
Is the required gain percentage the same as the amount of money I lost?
The dollar amount is identical either way, what changes is the base it's measured against. The percentage lost was measured against the larger peak balance; the percentage needed to recover is measured against the smaller current balance, which is exactly why the recovery percentage is always the larger of the two numbers.
Does this card tell me how long recovery will actually take?
The card includes a recovery-time estimator based on an assumed average monthly return you provide yourself, so you can see roughly how many months a given required gain takes at a return rate you consider realistic for your own trading. It isn't a projection or a guarantee of any specific outcome.