Drawdown recovery calculator
Losses and gains are not symmetrical: a 50% loss needs a 100% gain to recover.
How it is worked out
Gain needed = drawdown ÷ (1 − drawdown). Losing trades to reach a drawdown at r% risk each = log(1 − drawdown) ÷ log(1 − r).
Questions
Why protect against drawdowns?
The deeper the drawdown, the harder the recovery: 10% needs 11%, 30% needs 43%, 50% needs 100%, 90% needs 900%.