You started with 1,000, got up to 1,200 and finished at 1,100. On paper the account is still in profit, yet it feels as if money has been lost. Both views have a point: you are 10% up on the start, but about 8.33% has vanished from your best result. Account drawdown describes the second half of that story precisely. It shows the path of your capital, which is easy to hide behind a single final percentage. Let’s go through current and maximum drawdown, the arithmetic of recovery and a practical review of intrade.bar trades. We will also show how voluntary daily risk management helps you stick to a chosen limit without confusing it with drawdown over your whole history.
What amount drawdown is measured from
At each point, first find the highest account value reached up to that moment. It includes the current point and all previous ones, but not future ones. Subtract the current value from that peak and you get drawdown in money. For a percentage, divide the difference by the same peak and multiply by 100. The formula: drawdown = (peak to date − current value) / peak ×100%.
If 1,000 first became 1,100 and then 990, the loss relative to the start is 10, or 1%. But from the 1,100 peak the decline is 110, that is 10%. These are two different measures with different denominators. Both are useful in a report: the first shows the result against your chosen starting base, the second shows how far the account has fallen from its best state so far.
At a new peak, current drawdown is zero. The past decline still stays in the history and may remain the maximum for the period. Neither a winning streak nor a shiny new record erases it. Drawdown is shown either as a positive size of decline or as a negative area below zero on a chart. Agree on the sign convention first, then compare the numbers.
A sample series: why a −3.2% result hides a 20% fall
Take the balance after trades are closed: 1,000, 1,100, 990, 1,045, 1,210, 968. In this example there are no open positions, deposits or withdrawals; all changes are trading results. For each point we keep the peak reached and the size of the decline. The series is short enough to check the calculation by hand and see exactly where the drawdown occurs.
| Step | Balance | Peak to date | Drawdown | Drawdown, % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,000 | 1,000 | 0 | 0% |
| 2 | 1,100 | 1,100 | 0 | 0% |
| 3 | 990 | 1,100 | 110 | 10% |
| 4 | 1,045 | 1,100 | 55 | 5% |
| 5 | 1,210 | 1,210 | 0 | 0% |
| 6 | 968 | 1,210 | 242 | 20% |
At step four, 1,045 is already above the previous 990 but still below the 1,100 peak. Current drawdown has shrunk from 10% to 5%. At step five, 1,210 sets a new peak and ends the earlier episode. Then the fall to 968 creates a decline of 242, or 20% of 1,210. At the last point, current and maximum percentage drawdown coincide: both are 20%.
Relative to the starting 1,000, the final 968 is a loss of only 3.2%. If you show just the start and the end, the path looks almost calm. Yet a fifth of the capital vanished from the intermediate peak. That is why the final percentage and the drawdown must be read together, over the same period and on the same series. A short caption like “the month was roughly break-even” can hide some very real swings.
Current and maximum drawdown are not the same number
Current drawdown refers to the latest observation. Maximum drawdown refers to the deepest decline from a previously reached peak within the chosen history. You can’t simply take the largest and smallest numbers regardless of order. The peak must come before the corresponding fall; otherwise you measure the range of values, not a loss you actually went through.
For example, the series 900→1,200→1,140 has a range of 300, but there was no fall from 1,200 to 900. After the peak, the account dropped by only 60, or 5%. Conversely, if you cut the history after an earlier peak, the calculation for the new period may show a smaller drawdown. That is a legitimate, different question as long as the period is stated explicitly. A “weekly” figure can’t be compared directly with an “account lifetime” figure.
The largest fall in money and the largest in percent may belong to different episodes. A loss of 300 on a large account can be relatively small, while 100 on a small one can be significant. Keep both units and the peak used for the calculation. Also note the duration: the time to the deepest point differs from the full time it takes to get back to the previous peak.
What to take from your intrade.bar history
For a first review, it is convenient to pick one account, one currency and a period with no deposits or withdrawals. In intrade.bar statistics, real and demo data are separate; there are results by asset and by expiry, and closed trades can be exported to CSV for chosen dates. One export covers a period of up to a year and up to 20,000 closed trades; times are in UTC. Keep the reasons for your decisions and the situation before entry separately.
Start with the confirmed balance before the series and add the net result of each closed trade in order of settlement time. If the export shows the payout together with the returned stake, first separate the return of your own money from the profit. For a notional 100 trade with an 85% payout, a win changes capital by +85, a loss by −100 and a refund by 0. Don’t add 185 as net profit: 100 of that amount was already yours.
Next to the sequence of results, create the columns “cumulative result,” “capital from closed trades,” “peak to date” and “drawdown.” When several trades close at the same time, decide the order in advance or combine the results for that moment. To rebuild the exact actual balance, reconcile against the full account history. If data is missing, label the series as a calculation from closed results, not as the full value of the account every second.
The statistics already include a win rate, but it doesn’t replace this work. Refunds are not part of its denominator, and trade sizes and payout percentages can change the result noticeably at the same share of wins. A high percentage on one asset doesn’t explain a drawdown either without the number of observations. Three winning trades are a pleasant episode, not yet a reliable conclusion.
Why an open amount is not a realized loss
After you open an option, your available balance may go down because the amount is committed to the trade. That does not mean the trade has already been lost. For drawdown based on closed results, count it once it has settled. Free funds, the balance from completed trades and the economic value of the account with open contracts answer different questions.
intrade.bar has no early closing, so there is no point importing the familiar calculation of floating P&L for a position you could sell immediately. First define the available data and the method. In this article we use the sequence of closed results: it is clear and reproducible, but we don’t claim it describes every intermediate change in open contracts.
How often you take observations affects maximum drawdown. Recording only at the end of the day can miss an intraday peak and the fall after it. A series updated after each closed trade gives more detail. When comparing reports, check the frequency, the starting base and the period. Different numbers don’t always mean an error: the reports may simply measure different parts of the path.
Recovering from a drawdown takes a larger percentage
After a fall from 1,000 to 800, the loss is 20% of the original thousand. You need to get back 200, but the base is now 800, so a 25% gain is required. Add only 20% to 800 and you get 960. The difference comes from the denominator. There is no mystery here and no punishment from the market for failure, just the ordinary arithmetic of a smaller remaining amount.
For a drawdown d expressed as a fraction, the gain needed to return to the previous peak is d / (1 −d), provided 0≤d<1. A 10% loss requires about 11.1% growth, 30% about 42.9%, 50% requires 100%. After 80%, you need 400% on what is left. With a total loss of capital, no finite percentage describes recovery anymore: a zero base will not grow by itself.
In the main example, the path from 968 back to 1,210 is 242/968 =25%. Returning only to the starting 1,000 requires 32/968 ≈3.31%. So be specific about the word “recover”: back to the start or back to the peak. The formula shows the distance, but promises nothing about the time or whether it can be covered at all. It certainly does not order you to do it by tonight.
A deposit doesn’t fix trading statistics, and a withdrawal doesn’t create a loss
If you withdrew 400 out of 1,000, the remaining 600 does not by itself mean a 40% trading drawdown. The money moved; it was not necessarily lost in trades. A deposit works the other way: it can lift the balance and hide a negative trading result. That is why cash flows and trading results should be kept separate.
For your first independent check, it is simpler to choose a stretch with no external transfers. If there are some, split the history at the moments of the flows and use a consistent normalization method, for example a chain of returns between them. Don’t subtract all deposits as one flat amount from every historical point: the timing of the transfer and the base available matter. State the method next to the result.
This is especially important when comparing periods on intrade.bar. One month may include a large deposit, another a withdrawal of profits. Comparing balances alone shows how money moved, not the quality of your decisions. Reconcile the trading result first, then explain separately how transfers changed the amount in the account.
intrade.bar voluntary daily limits and drawdown
Drawdown measures the distance already travelled from a peak, while a daily limit sets a condition for stopping new trades. On intrade.bar, risk management is voluntary: you can choose No limits or set your own loss and profit limits. A value of 0 in a field means there is no corresponding limit. Setting a limit doesn’t turn a strategy into a profitable one, but the chosen boundary gets enforced technically.
Percentages are calculated from the balance at the moment you set them, and the resulting limits stay fixed until the end of the day. Settings are made once a day and can only be changed the next day. A new day for limits starts at 00:00 Moscow time (MSK), which is 21:00 UTC. No limits is not a way to lift a hard limit you have already set in the middle of that day.
Before a trade opens, the system checks the amount of the new trade, the daily loss already incurred and the amounts in open trades. If together they exceed the loss limit, the new trade will not open. For example, with a notional base of 10,000 and 3% selected, the limit is 300. If the daily loss already counted is 200, the open amount is 100 and the new order is 100, the total of 400 exceeds the limit. This check takes risk that is already open into account rather than waiting for the last loss.
When the loss or profit on closed trades reaches the corresponding limit you chose, new trades cannot be opened until the end of the day. This does not force-close contracts that are already open, and it does not block the account. Deposits and withdrawals are not counted in the trading result for limits. A daily limit also does not automatically cap the maximum drawdown for a month: several separate days form their own capital path.
What to do with the results of your review
After a noticeable decline, first check whether you followed your rules, whether your trade amounts grew, and whether payouts or selection conditions changed. A streak of three losses at different sizes can have a completely different money effect. Historical maximum drawdown is not a ceiling on future losses, so “it was never worse in the test” is no substitute for limits chosen in advance.
Don’t make recovery a mandatory goal for the next session. It depends on new results, which can’t be controlled by command. What you can control is the sequence of actions: save the history, take a break, check your rules on the intrade.bar demo and decide on acceptable risk before the next real trade. The urge to quickly win back a nice-looking number doesn’t improve the outcome of the next option by itself.
Start with a small slice of the CSV and rebuild a few points by hand using the table above. Then look at where the peak formed, what explains the fall and how long the episode lasted. A review like this turns the unpleasant feeling of “I ruined everything” into concrete data. It is easier to fix a process with that data than with one emotion or one final percentage.
Questions and answers
Can I be in profit and in drawdown at the same time?
Yes. A rise from 1,000 to 1,200 and a fall to 1,100 leave you 10% up on the start, but give about 8.33% drawdown from the peak. Both figures are correct; they just have different bases.
Is the intrade.bar daily limit the same as maximum drawdown?
No. The limit voluntarily sets conditions for stopping new trades within a single day. Maximum drawdown describes the decline from a previous peak over the chosen history and can span many days.
After losing 50%, is it enough to make 50%?
No. Of 1,000, 500 will remain; a 50% gain gives 750. Getting back to 1,000 takes 100% of the remaining 500. This calculation shows the distance to the goal, but doesn’t promise you will reach it.
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