Max drawdown calculator from account values
How bad did it really get? Paste your account values and see the deepest drop from a high, what it takes to climb back, and how long you sat below it.
How it works: the calculator walks through your numbers in order and keeps track of the highest value so far (the peak). At each step it measures how far the account sits below that peak. The biggest of those gaps is the max drawdown: (peak − low) ÷ peak. The gain needed to get back is (peak − low) ÷ low. Time under water is how many steps it took to get back to an old high, or how long it has been below it if it hasn't yet. A step is the gap between two numbers you pasted. Paste month-end balances and a step is a month. With monthly returns, each month's % is applied to the balance before it.
Why the climb back is steeper than the fall
A 20% drop sounds like a 20% problem. It isn't. If $10,000 falls to $8,000, the $8,000 has to grow by 25% to get back. A 50% drop needs a 100% gain. The deeper the hole, the harder the climb. That's why traders watch max drawdown more than any single win. You can see the full table in the loss recovery calculator. The fix starts before the drop: small, fixed risk on every trade, so no run of losses can dig a deep hole.
Time under water is the part that hurts
The % tells you how deep the drop was. Time under water tells you how long you sat in it. Months below an old high are when people quit, double their size, or chase it back. Both numbers matter. A plan that can lose 15% and climb out in two months feels very different from one that stays down for a year. A daily loss limit keeps one bad day from starting a long one. Option sellers face the same math when one assignment lands at a bad price. See drawdown math for option sellers. New to the word? Start with what max drawdown means.
Make this a habit, not a one-off. Lesson 2 of our free email course is all risk: the 1% rule, where your stop goes, and the 2-loss rule. Send me the free lessons →
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