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Drawdown & Recovery

If I lose 40%, what does recovery really take?

A fall and the gain that undoes it are not the same number, and the gap widens fast. Set a drawdown and see exactly what getting back to even requires.

Your scenario

40%

Recovery assumptions

Annual returns to test. Each one answers: how long, at that pace?

Gain required to get back to even

66.7%

After a 40% fall, that is what the remaining capital has to produce.

Capital after the fall

€60,000

At 5.0% a year

10.5 years

At 7.0% a year

7.6 years

At 10.0% a year

5.4 years

Why the two numbers divergeGain required

The left half is the fall; the right half is the gain it takes to undo it. They are equal only at zero.

Show these figures as a table
Fall from the peakGain required
5%5%
10%11%
20%25%
30%43%
40%67%
50%100%
60%150%
70%233%
80%400%
Method, sources and limits
Method version
1.0.0
  • The required gain is exact arithmetic: 1/(1−d)−1. The time is a projection at a constant assumed rate and has nothing to do with how long any real market took — the historical references below are labelled separately for that reason.

Past performance is not a guide to future returns. These figures describe what happened over the period shown and nothing else.

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Questions about this tool

Why isn't a 50% loss undone by a 50% gain?
Because the gain is earned on what is left, not on what you started with. Half of 100 is 50; getting from 50 back to 100 is a doubling.
Is this how long a real recovery took?
No, and the distinction matters. This is the time at a constant assumed rate. Real recoveries are irregular, and the historical references are shown separately for exactly that reason.
Why does a zero rate return no answer?
Because capital that does not grow never returns to where it started. Printing a very large number instead would imply that it eventually does.

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