A 20% loss needs a 25% gain to break even — and it gets worse fast. Enter your drawdown to see the exact recovery gain required.
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Percentages are asymmetric: after losing X%, you're compounding from a smaller base, so the gain needed to recover is always larger than the loss.
This asymmetry is the mathematical argument for cutting losses early and risking small fractions per trade: staying out of deep drawdowns is far easier than climbing out of them. The most dangerous response to a drawdown is increasing size to "win it back" — it moves you rightward on this curve.
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Start Free — No Credit Card →Because recovery compounds from the smaller base. ₹1,00,000 dropping 50% leaves ₹50,000 — and ₹50,000 must double (a 100% gain) to reach ₹1,00,000 again.
Most professionals cut position size during drawdowns (some halve risk after every 5–10% down) and restore it as equity recovers. This slows recovery slightly but makes deep, unrecoverable drawdowns far less likely — and protects decision quality.
It's a compounding approximation assuming a steady average gain per trade — real recoveries are lumpy. Its value is in scale: seeing that a drawdown needs ~90 average trades to repair is a strong argument for not getting there.