Losing streak calculator

What a streak does to the balance

A fixed dollar risk takes the same amount every time. The drawdown is the risk times the number of losses. A percentage risk takes a slice of whatever is left, so the balance after the streak is the start times (1 minus the risk), raised to the number of losses. Drawdown is the fall from the start as a share of the start. The recovery figure is the start over the balance left, minus one. It is always the bigger number. The limit count comes last: the calculator keeps losing trades until the drawdown reaches the limit you enter and counts how many fitted before it, which is the figure that decides whether a funded account gets through a bad week, and it is why the viewpoint on sizing for the losing streak you have not had yet starts from the streak and works back to the risk.

A worked example on the defaults

A $50,000 account risks 1% of its current balance on every trade and loses 10 in a row. The first loss is $500, the tenth is $456.76, and the balance ends at $45,219.10, a drawdown of 9.56%. Getting back to $50,000 takes a 10.57% gain. Now add a $2,500 drawdown limit. After 5 losses the account is down $2,450.50, just inside it. The sixth loss takes the drawdown to $2,925.99 and ends the account, so the limit survives 5 losses and not a sixth. A method that loses half its trades will hit five losses in a row fairly often over a few hundred trades. At 2% a trade the same 10 losses would leave $40,853.64. Switch the select to a fixed dollar amount and enter 500 to see how a flat risk compares.

What to check on the rule page

Rules vary from firm to firm. Read the evaluation's rule page before trusting any count here. Some firms measure the limit from the starting balance, as above. Others trail it behind the highest balance reached, so a winning week raises the floor and a later streak has less room than the same streak on day one. Some accounts add a daily loss limit, which a streak inside one session can hit first. Payouts come out of the same cushion, as argued in a prop firm payout comes out of your drawdown cushion, and the account type changes how the rules read, which is covered in futures prop firm vs stock prop firm. For the longest streak to plan around, use your own test results; the lesson on reading backtest results shows where to find it. A stop can also fill worse than planned, which makes each loss larger than the risk you entered.