Drawdown recovery calculator
After a loss, the gain you need to break even is always bigger than the loss itself — because it’s measured against a smaller balance. A 20% loss needs a 25% gain; a 50% loss needs 100%. See the break-even gain for your loss and how long recovery takes.
The loss-to-recovery asymmetry
This is the number every investor should internalise: the deeper the loss, the disproportionately larger the gain needed to get back to even. Losing is easy to recover from when it’s small — and brutal when it’s large.
| Loss | Gain to break even |
|---|---|
| −10% | +11.1% |
| −20% | +25% |
| −30% | +42.9% |
| −40% | +66.7% |
| −50% | +100% |
| −60% | +150% |
| −70% | +233.3% |
| −80% | +400% |
| −90% | +900% |
How break-even math works
A percentage gain and an equal percentage loss aren’t symmetric, because they act on different balances. A 50% loss turns $100 into $50; getting from $50 back to $100 is a 100% gain, not 50%. The required gain is:
required_gain = loss / (1 − loss)
To estimate time to recover at a steady return, we solve for how many years of compounding it takes to earn that gain:
years = ln(1 / (1 − loss)) / ln(1 + annual_return)
This is why controlling large drawdowns matters more than chasing big gains — avoiding a −50% hole is worth more than needing the +100% that digs you out of it. For the fuller picture on measuring and managing downside, see portfolio risk: VaR, beta and drawdown and the max drawdown definition.
Illustrative math on the numbers you enter. The years-to-recover figure assumes a constant return and is not a forecast; real recoveries are uneven. Educational tool, not financial advice. No market data is used. Your figures never leave the page — the calculation runs entirely in your browser. The page loads standard pageview analytics, which never sees your numbers.
This math stops at what you typed in.
Tradune runs it continuously on your real holdings — with your money-weighted return next to a buy-and-hold SPY twin, and SEC insider filings flagged on the stocks you own.
Educational analytics — not investment advice.