ToolsPerpetualsSurvival Simulator
What could a losing streak cost me?
Test how repeated losses could affect your trading money.
Example strategy. Change anything to check your own.
New to this? Read a short explanation
Why most traders blow up
A strategy that wins over time can still wipe you out if each bet is too big for the number of trades you will make. Most people quit after losing 30 to 50% of their money and decide the system stopped working. Usually the system was fine. Luck ran against them for a while.
This plays your strategy out thousands of times and shows the whole range. The usual case, the worst, the best, and how often a losing streak gets bad enough to make you stop.
Step 1. Your strategy
The three numbers that describe your edge. Be honest with them. Most people put their win rate 5 to 10 points too high.
Starting account, in dollars
What you trade with today.
Win rate, 50%
How often your trades end in profit. 50% is the honest starting point for most people. Systems with real edge land at 53 to 60%.
Reward to risk, 1 to 2.0
Your average win divided by your average loss. Two to one means the average win is twice the average loss. Whether that works depends on how often the trade wins.
Risk per trade, 2.0%
What share of your money you put at risk on each trade. 1 to 2% is what most people use. At 5%, five losses in a row cut a 10,000 dollar account to about 7,738.
More settings: how long to play it out
Step 2. How long to play it out
More trades means more chances for a bad streak to find you. Pick a length that matches how long you plan to keep at this.
Trades in each run
How many trades one run covers.
Number of simulations, 500
How many times to play it out. More runs give a smoother picture and take a little longer.
What counts as ruin
How far down from the top counts as ruined. Most people stop somewhere between 30 and 50%.
How the math works
Each run plays 200 trades. On each one, a random number decides win or loss using your win rate. A win adds the reward times what you risked. A loss takes that share of your balance away. Each run keeps its highest balance and the biggest fall from it.
Across 500 separate runs, we count how often that fall ever crossed the limit you chose. That share is the chance of ruin. It says nothing about whether your edge is real, only whether your bet size can live through the swings that come with it.
How this tool works
How to read this
- 01
The tool plays your strategy out thousands of times with the same odds and lets luck vary.
- 02
The usual result is the middle line. The bad case is what a normal losing streak does to you.
- 03
The chance of a streak that would make you quit is the number that matters. Smaller bets shrink it fast.
Pure math on your inputs, nothing live. Educational only.
How the calculation works
- 01Thousands of random runs of your win rate, win to loss ratio and bet size, each the length you set.
- 02The fall (drawdown) = how far a run dropped from its highest balance. The headline counts the runs that crossed the limit you set.
- 03The fall in a bad run is the level only 5 in every 100 runs went past.
Data sources and update times
- Your inputs
- Win rate, ratio, bet size, trades, threshold
- Instant, reruns on every change
Words on this page
Each one has a page that explains it in plain English.