The brutal math: the gain needed to recover a loss.
Educational tool only — not financial advice. Verify figures with your broker.
The Drawdown Recovery Calculator is a risk tool that shows the asymmetric math of losing: given a percentage loss of account equity, it computes the percentage gain required to get back to where you started. It answers the uncomfortable question of why a 50% loss needs a 100% gain to recover. It quantifies the hole, not a way out of it.
Required recovery gain = drawdown divided by (1 minus drawdown), expressed as a percentage. The logic: a loss of d leaves you with (1 - d) of your capital, and to rebuild 1 unit from (1 - d) you must gain d/(1-d) on the smaller base. So a 50% loss leaves half your money, and half must double (+100%) to recover; a 20% loss needs +25%.
Because the gain is earned on the smaller surviving balance, not the original one. Half your capital has to double to rebuild the whole, which is why the drawdown calculator shows recovery percentages that outrun the loss.
Here drawdown is the percentage drop in equity from a prior level, and the calculator translates that drop into the recovery gain required. Deeper drawdowns demand disproportionately larger gains.
Mathematically, the only lever the tool shows is keeping the drawdown shallow, since the required gain climbs steeply with depth. It does not tell you how to trade to achieve that.
Keep in mind: This figure only states the arithmetic gain needed to break even; it says nothing about how long recovery takes, how likely it is, or whether any strategy can produce that gain. A required recovery percentage is a warning about loss asymmetry, not a plan or a promise that the account will recover.