Drawdown Percentiles · The Read
How MARS uses this
Reading drawdown bands against gate state is the page's doctrine, and this distribution is the read's raw material: simulated maximum drawdowns binned over the gate zones. Live drawdown better than the bands under a compressed gate tells a different story than the same number under GREEN — the overlay of zones is what makes that visible.
How it benefits you
You get a pre-agreed definition of normal pain, decided calmly before the pain started. That single artifact prevents the two classic errors - panic de-risking inside ordinary variance, and denial when damage is genuinely abnormal. You always know which situation you are in.
Bands over gate zones: the same drawdown number means different things depending on which zone it lands in.
The read
Drawdown bands must be read against gate state — that is benchmark doctrine. Live drawdown better than the bands suggests strong capital control. Inside the bands: expected behavior, hold the process. Worse than the adverse percentile bands: over-risk, execution weakness, or a structurally weaker system than modeled. Worse than 40%: System Lock territory.
Where it lives
This page expands one card of the Drawdown Percentiles page into its own reference. For orientation, the module's own framing: Simulated drawdown distributions define expected depth, frequency, and duration of underwater periods. A losing stretch inside the bands is variance; a breach of the adverse bands is a structural warning that outranks any green dashboard.
Conditional bands
Simulated drawdown distributions are generated with gate transitions modeled in — so the bands already assume compression happens when it should. Live drawdown outside those bands therefore means something specific: the damage exceeded what disciplined braking predicts, which points the review at execution and exposure rather than at luck.
Doctrine
Reference
Every review plots realized equity against the benchmark envelope generated from the system's own evidence. Position inside the band is classified - normal variance, outperformance, or model deviation - and only classified deviation triggers structural review. Raw P&L is never interpreted naked.
Live equity drawn inside the simulated envelope. The question is never 'am I up?' - it is 'where inside my own distribution am I running?'
Connected inside MARS
Go deeper
Deep dive — 01
Your −11% has an address among fifty thousand governed futures. Find it before deciding what it means.
Read the full brief →
Deep dive — 02
A breach does not mean the market was severe. It means damage exceeded what disciplined braking predicts.
Read the full brief →
Deep dive — 03
Shallower than modelled is either capital control or under-deployment, and the two look identical on the drawdown chart.
Read the full brief →
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