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Drawdown Calculator

Paste an equity series to find the largest peak-to-trough fall and the recovery gain that fall demands.

Quick answer: Maximum drawdown is the deepest peak-to-trough decline an equity curve suffers, measured as a percentage of the peak, and it is the honest measure of how much pain a strategy has actually inflicted. The tool walks your equity series, tracks the running high-water mark, and records the largest percentage fall below it. It also shows the recovery factor and makes the asymmetry of loss concrete: a deep drawdown needs a disproportionately larger gain to climb back, which is why controlling drawdown is central to survival.

Equity series (comma or space separated)

How to use it

Paste the value of your account or backtest equity at successive points in time, separated by commas, spaces or new lines. The output is the maximum drawdown as a percentage of the peak, the rupee depth of that drawdown, the net profit, and the recovery factor (net profit divided by the worst drawdown). The chart shows the equity curve with the peak-to-trough fall highlighted. Nothing you paste is uploaded; the analysis runs entirely in your browser.

Formula

Max drawdown% = max over t of ( Peak so far − Equity[t] ) ÷ Peak so far × 100 ; Recovery gain needed% = 1 ÷ (1 − Max drawdown%) − 1

Peak so far is the highest equity value seen up to and including point t. Recovery factor = Net profit ÷ Max drawdown in rupees, where Net profit is the last value minus the first. The recovery gain needed grows non-linearly: a 20% drawdown needs +25% to recover, a 50% drawdown needs +100%, and an 80% drawdown needs +400%.

Frequently asked questions

Why does a drawdown need a bigger gain to recover?

Because the gain is calculated on the reduced capital that remains. A 50 percent fall leaves half your money, so you must double what is left, a 100 percent gain, just to return to the start. This asymmetry of loss is the mathematical reason risk management prizes shallow drawdowns.

Why measure drawdown from the peak, not the start?

Drawdown captures the worst experience of holding the strategy, which is the fall from the highest point reached, not from where you began. A strategy can be up overall yet still have punished you with a deep mid-course decline that tested your nerve and your capital.

What is the recovery factor?

It is net profit divided by the maximum drawdown in rupees. A recovery factor of three means the strategy made three times its worst dip, a rough measure of reward earned per unit of pain endured.

Is a smaller maximum drawdown always better?

Usually a shallower drawdown is easier to survive and to sit through, but a suspiciously small drawdown in a backtest can signal overfitting or too short a sample. Judge it against the length and realism of the test.

Does drawdown tell me how long recovery takes?

Not directly. Depth and duration are different. A shallow drawdown can still last a long time, which is often harder to endure than a deep but quick one, so consider both the depth and how many periods the account spent underwater.

What data should I paste?

A time-ordered series of equity values, such as end-of-day account value or backtest equity. The points should be in chronological order; the tool treats each value as one step after the last.

Runs entirely in your browser — no data leaves your device. Illustrative and educational only; real-world charges and market conditions apply in practice.