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How to Run a Reproducible Monte Carlo Drawdown Study

Research protocol · Reviewed 24 Aug 2026

A profitable average can produce many equity paths because wins and losses arrive in different orders. Simulation is useful for estimating that sequence risk when its assumptions remain visible.

It becomes misleading when independent synthetic trades replace the clustering, tails, and changing size present in the actual strategy.

Simulation inherits its input assumptions

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Build a drawdown distribution from complete net trades and preserved dependence

Monte Carlo analysis does not discover the future; it propagates an assumed trade distribution into many possible orderings. Independent reshuffling is inappropriate when trades cluster by session, overlap, or change with volatility. The input ledger must include net outcomes, size changes, costs, and the original chronological structure.

Compare ordinary reshuffling with block bootstrap and regime-aware scenarios. Publish the random seed, number of paths, starting equity, sizing rule, ruin or breach definition, and drawdown formula. Report percentiles and recovery duration rather than one dramatic maximum.

Resampling unit

Individual trades assume independence. Daily, weekly, session, or regime blocks preserve more realistic clusters when outcomes are related.

Sizing feedback

Fixed lots, fixed fractional risk, and volatility targeting create different equity paths even from identical R outcomes.

Drawdown definition

State balance versus equity, peak update, open-trade treatment, costs, and whether the statistic is percentage, currency, or R.

  1. Clean and freeze the complete chronological trade ledger.
  2. Run independent and block-resampled models as sensitivity cases.
  3. Publish seeds, paths, sizing, barriers, and percentile definitions.
  4. Stress worse expectancy, larger tails, and correlated losses.

A Monte Carlo drawdown chart is only as credible as the trade distribution and dependence it assumes.

Prepare the input ledger

Use every eligible trade in chronological order with net R, timestamps, overlap, rule version, regime tags, and costs. Decide whether the sample supports trade-level resampling or requires session, week, or regime blocks.

Declare the simulation engine

Publish starting capital, fixed-lot or fractional sizing, compounding, open-equity treatment, random generator and seed policy, number of paths, path length, replacement rule, and any account breach or ruin boundary.

Report distributions and sensitivity

Show median and upper-percentile maximum drawdown, time under water, loss streak, terminal equity, and breach frequency. Repeat with weaker expectancy, larger losses, higher costs, and more clustering; do not select the friendliest model.

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Beginner exploration

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