Small percentage gains add up fast when compounded. Set your starting balance, return per period, frequency, and number of periods to model realistic growth — including periodic deposits.
Compounding means each period's return is calculated on the new balance, including previous gains — not just on the original starting balance. The calculator applies your return percentage period by period: new balance = previous balance × (1 + return %) + any deposit added that period.
Run over enough periods, this produces exponential rather than linear growth, which is why consistently small returns compounded over time can outperform sporadic large gains. The tool also converts your period-based return into an annualised figure — comparable to CAGR (compound annual growth rate) — so you can compare, say, a 2% weekly return against a 5% monthly return on equal footing.
It's worth treating projections like this as a model of consistency, not a promise: real trading returns vary period to period, and a string of losing periods compounds losses just as effectively as gains compound profits.
Worked example: starting with $10,000 and compounding a 5% monthly return for 24 months, with no extra deposits, grows the account to roughly $32,251 — a 222.5% total return. That's equivalent to a 79.6% annualised rate and more than 3.2× the starting balance, purely from reinvesting gains every month rather than withdrawing them.
Compounding means reinvesting your gains so future returns are calculated on a growing balance rather than your original starting capital. Over many periods this produces accelerating, exponential growth rather than flat, linear growth.
No real strategy delivers the exact same return every single period — this calculator assumes a fixed rate purely to illustrate the mathematics of compounding. Use it to understand the shape of growth, then stress-test your actual results against realistic variance and drawdowns.
Adding a fixed deposit each period accelerates growth beyond pure compounding, because each new deposit also starts earning returns from that point forward. The calculator adds your deposit to the balance at the end of every period before applying the next period's return.
It converts your chosen return-per-period into an equivalent yearly growth rate (similar to CAGR), so a weekly, monthly, or daily return can be compared on the same annual basis regardless of compounding frequency.
Because of compounding, a modest return sustained consistently over many periods can produce far larger total growth than an occasional large win — the growth multiple shown in the results illustrates exactly how many times your starting balance the projection reaches.