🔢 Interactive Tool
Consecutive Loss Probability
Even profitable strategies have losing streaks. This calculator shows you exactly how likely — and how severe — those streaks can be, so you're never surprised.
Calculator
10%90%
20500
| Consecutive Losses | Probability of Exactly This Streak | Probability in 100 Trades |
|---|---|---|
| 2 in a row | 16.00% | 99.9% |
| 3 in a row | 6.40% | 89.0% |
| 4 in a row | 2.56% | 47.7% |
| 5 in a row | 1.02% | 18.6% |
| 6 in a row | 0.41% | 6.6% |
| 7 in a row | 0.16% | 2.3% |
| 8 in a row | 0.07% | 0.8% |
| 10 in a row | 0.01% | 0.1% |
■ <5% — Unlikely■ 5–20% — Possible■ 20–50% — Likely■ >50% — Almost certain
Drawdown Impact Calculator
How much does a 5-loss streak actually cost you, based on your risk per trade?
Account Size
$10,000
After 5 Losses
$961 lost
Drawdown %
9.6%
Why Losing Streaks Are Normal — and Expected
Even a highly profitable strategy will experience consecutive losses. This is not a sign the strategy has stopped working. It is a mathematical certainty.
→ The coin flip analogy
Consider a fair coin with 50% win rate. If you flip it 100 times, the probability of seeing at least 6 consecutive tails is approximately 97%. It's not bad luck — it's statistics. Trading is the same.
→ Most traders quit during the drawdown
Research shows the majority of traders abandon strategies precisely during normal losing streaks — exactly the worst time. They lock in losses and never experience the recovery. The calculator above helps you mentally prepare for what is mathematically inevitable.
→ Edge survives if sample size is large enough
A strategy with profit factor 1.5 and 60% win rate will be profitable over 100+ trades. But over any 10-trade sample, it can easily lose 7 or 8 in a row. The edge only becomes visible in aggregate. This is why we require minimum 20 trades for any published strategy, and why you should always look at strategies with 100+ trades.
→ The correct response to a losing streak
Review whether the market conditions have fundamentally changed. If not, and the strategy's fundamental logic is intact, continue following it with consistent position sizing. Panic-exiting during a drawdown is one of the most expensive mistakes a trader can make.
💡
The Core Lesson
Profitable trading is not about winning every trade. It is about having positive expected value and the discipline to let it play out over a large sample. Losing streaks are not a problem to solve — they are a cost to manage. Size your positions so that any realistic losing streak leaves you with enough capital to continue.