EA Drawdown
Explained
Drawdown is the deepest fall from a peak, and the figure our scoring weighs above return. Depth is half of it; recovery time is the other half.
Updated:
Key takeaways
- Drawdown is the deepest fall from an equity peak, measured as a percentage of that peak.
- Our tested robots ranged from -12.1% to -29.1%. Dot Trading reached -100%.
- Depth is half the answer. Recovery time decides whether you stay in the trade.
- At +4.1% a month, recovering a 29% fall needs about eight unbroken months.
- Read drawdown against return, never alone. Bullcharge returned less than Doji with far shallower falls.
What Does Drawdown
Actually Measure?
Peak, trough and the fall between them, plus three mix-ups that cost money.
Drawdown is the deepest fall from a peak in account equity. It is quoted as a percentage of that peak.
It answers one question: how bad did this get. Not how often, and not how long.
The number is the single most useful figure on a robot's record. It is also the one most often left out.
The four terms
- Peak: the highest equity the account has reached so far.
- Trough: the lowest equity reached after that peak, before a new one.
- Drawdown: the fall from peak to trough, as a percentage of the peak.
- Maximum drawdown: the deepest such fall over the whole test period.
Three common mix-ups
- A single losing trade is not a drawdown. It is one input to it.
- Balance drawdown ignores open positions. Equity drawdown includes them.
- A 50% fall needs a 100% gain to recover, not a 50% gain.
The third mix-up costs the most. Recovery is always harder than the fall, because the base has shrunk.
What Our Seven
Tests Measured
Deepest fall beside total return for every robot we funded.
We funded seven robots and recorded the deepest fall of each. The range was wide.
Read each pair together. A shallow fall with a small return is a different product from a deep fall with a large one.
Fall against return
- EA Automatic: fall -18.4%, return +237%.
- Bullcharge: fall -12.1%, return +189%.
- Doji EA: fall -20.1%, return +221%.
- WallStreet Robot 3.0: fall -22.5%, return +47.4%.
- Team POW: fall -24.7%, return +52%.
- Forex Fury: fall -29.1%, return +18%.
- Dot Trading: fall -100%, return -100%.
Bullcharge fell least and earned least of the top three. Doji earned more and fell nearly twice as far.
Neither is the better robot in the abstract. They suit different tolerances for a bad month.
Forex Fury is the instructive one. It fell 29.1% while returning 18%, so the fall outweighed the gain.
Full monthly records sit in the robot rankings.
How Long Does
Recovery Take?
The gain each fall requires, and the months it needs at the measured pace.
A fall and its recovery are not symmetrical. Losing 20% needs 25% to return to the peak.
The reason is the base. After the fall, every percent is calculated on a smaller account.
Put the measured monthly pace next to the required gain, and the fall acquires a length in months.
Depth turned into time
- EA Automatic: a 18.4% fall needs a 22.5% gain to get back. At 6% a month that is about 3 months.
- Bullcharge: a 12.1% fall needs a 13.8% gain to get back. At 4.1% a month that is about 3 months.
- Doji EA: a 20.1% fall needs a 25.2% gain to get back. At 7.2% a month that is about 3 months.
- WallStreet Robot 3.0: a 22.5% fall needs a 29.0% gain to get back. At 3% a month that is about 9 months.
- Team POW: a 24.7% fall needs a 32.8% gain to get back. At 3.9% a month that is about 7 months.
- Forex Fury: a 29.1% fall needs a 41.0% gain to get back. At 1.9% a month that is about 18 months.
These are arithmetic, not forecasts. They assume the measured pace continues without another fall.
That assumption rarely holds. Treat each figure as the best case, never the expected one.
The point is the ranking. Forex Fury needs the longest recovery and returned the least while it ran.
Dot Trading is absent from this table. A 100% loss has no recovery to calculate.
How to Size for
the Fall You Accept
Depth belongs to the strategy. The money it costs belongs to your lot size.
Drawdown depth is a property of the strategy. Drawdown in money is a property of your lot size.
You cannot change the first. The second is entirely yours to set.
Four steps
- Decide the deepest fall you would hold through, in money rather than percent.
- Find the robot’s measured maximum fall on its published record.
- Halve the lot size, and the fall in money halves with it.
- Check the result against your own tolerance, not the vendor’s.
On a $5,000 account a 20% fall is $1,000. At half the lot size the same strategy falls $500.
Work your own numbers in the position size calculator. The formula sits beside the fields.
The part nobody advertises
- A fall you will not sit through is a fall you will realise as a loss.
- Most accounts are closed near the trough, days before the recovery.
- Sizing down costs return. It buys the ability to stay in the test.
This is why our scoring puts the deepest fall above total return. A curve you abandon returns nothing.
The sizing rules themselves are set out in the position sizing playbook.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is drawdown on a forex robot?
The deepest fall in account equity from a previous peak, quoted as a percentage of that peak.
What counts as a good maximum drawdown?
There is no universal figure. The useful test is whether you would hold the position through that fall in money.
Why does a 20% loss need a 25% gain to recover?
Because the gain is calculated on the smaller account left after the fall. The base shrank, so the percentage has to grow.
What is the difference between balance and equity drawdown?
Balance counts closed trades only. Equity includes open positions, so it reveals losses a grid robot is still holding.
Which of your tested robots had the smallest drawdown?
Bullcharge, at -12.1% over eighteen months. It also returned the least of our top three.
Continue Your Measurement Cluster
Martingale and Grid EAs
Why these systems report shallow drawdown right up to the moment they do not.
Position Sizing Playbook
Risk per trade, volatility sizing, and the arithmetic behind a survivable fall.
The Brutal Math of Forex
Risk of ruin and the probabilities behind a losing streak you can survive.
What Is a Forex EA?
The fundamentals: what a robot controls, and what seven funded tests returned.
Our Methodology
The published weighting that puts deepest fall above total return.