# How long does it take to get back to even?

Understand recovery from a market decline: the peak, trough, first observed recovery and the limits of an unfinished record.

## Three dates answer different questions

A decline begins from a specified high. The trough is the lowest observed level before the episode ends. Recovery is the first subsequent observed close at or above that same starting peak. These dates describe a price record; they do not describe every investor’s experience.

Changing the starting date can change the high against which the decline is measured. Market Backstory keeps the selected interval beside the chart so that an interval high is not mistaken for an all-time high.

## Why a loss needs a larger gain

After a 50% loss, the remaining level is half the starting level. Regaining the start requires a 100% gain from that lower level. This is an arithmetic illustration, not a historical return or forecast.

A gain measured from a trough answers a different question from a return measured from the original entry. A recovery story should name both anchors.

Formula: Required gain after a decline of d = d / (1 - d), where d is a positive fraction smaller than 1.

## A record can end before recovery

If the retained observations end before the original peak is regained, the episode is unrecovered in the available record. Its eventual duration is unknown. Excluding these episodes can make recovery appear faster than the full set of experiences.

Observed trading closes and elapsed calendar days are different clocks. Weekends, holidays and gaps must not be silently counted as extra price observations. A missing observation cannot establish the exact day recovery occurred.

## Use the tools to test the claim

Open the overview’s recovery episodes, choose another entry, then inspect the source and exact interval. In History Lab, matching a condition and observing its later path are separate actions. The number of matched stretches is a descriptive count, not a probability or prediction.

Provider-adjusted fund paths, split-adjusted company prices and reported annual research returns have different bases. A recovery date from one cannot be substituted for another.

## Related research

- [Explore recovery episodes](/#market-notebook)
- [Build a historical question](/history-lab/)
- [Read the calculation contracts](/methods/)