The Drawdown Ladder
1-page keeperA single sheet of plain arithmetic: each drawdown depth lined up against the gain it takes to climb back. Stick it next to your brokerage app; reach for it before your next "sure thing" — the math won't flatter you.
Time in the red
The fall takes weeks. The climb back takes years.
Four times the market cracked. Each time, the descent was the quick part. Sitting through the long climb back — that's the part nobody warns you about.
Time to fall
Time to recover
Source: STI / MSCI ACWI, peak-to-peak
Episode
Time to fall
Time to recover
2008 GFCMSCI ACWI
7 months
4.5 years
2020 COVIDSTI
1 month
5 months
2000 Tech wreckMSCI World IT
2 years
7 years
1997 Asia crisisSTI
1.5 months
1.6 years
Recovery is measured peak-to-peak, not bottom-to-peak. The clock starts the day your portfolio turned red, and only stops when you cross the previous high — which often takes longer than the fall itself.
What you'll get on WhatsApp
Four short field manuals. Plain English, local episodes, nothing to install.
Four Fissures Before the Break
12-min readQuiet signals that surface before the panic hits: credit stretched thin, euphoria in the headlines, leverage hiding off-balance-sheet, and the famous four words — "this time is different". Check any REIT, fund or stock against them in under ten minutes.
The Pre-Position Plan
fill-in sheetA short worksheet to fill on a calm weekend, not mid-selloff. Where your cushion sits, what gets sold first if the water moves, what stays put, and what you'd regret doing in panic. Better answered on a Sunday than a Thursday at three a.m.
Sunday Rehearsal
15-min drillA fifteen-minute drill you run once a quarter: walk through what a 30% drawdown would actually do to your plan, on paper, while the screen is still green. The point isn't to predict the crash; it's to remove the surprise.
Why this guide, why now
Written for the reader past thirty-five
At 25, a 50% drawdown is a discount aisle. Past 35, the same number is a deferred retirement, a thinner education fund, a parent's care quietly under review.
- You remember where you were in 2008 — and how the falling numbers felt.
- Your portfolio probably has REITs, ETFs, maybe a few single names — and at some point you've asked how exposed the whole pile really is.
- You're past hype. What you actually want is a plan that buys back your Sunday nights.
~12 yrsaverage peak-to-peak recovery, MSCI ACWI 2008 onwards
−49%STI peak drawdown, 2008 GFC
~7 yrstech wreck recovery, 2000 to 2007
The team behind Ballast
Built by people who sat at risk desks
We're three people who cut our teeth on trading floors and in retail investing: Adrian Koh, Wei Lin Tan and Priya Nair. Between us, four crashes and roughly thirty-five years of watching households lose money they didn't have to.
Since 2021, Ballast has held one rule: nothing goes out unless we'd happily sit our own parents down with it. We don't do hype, hot tips, or get-rich-quick patter. What we do is lay down the kind of risk discipline a desk trader uses on a normal Tuesday — written in plain English, for the households we came from.
"Drawdowns will keep coming — nobody honest denies that. What we promise is this: you'll never face the next one without a plan written down first."
1,400+Singapore investors
12drills a year
S$0free, no card needed
"The pre-position sheet forced a conversation we'd been dodging for years. We finally agreed on what gets sold first if things go wrong."
J.L. · 51 · Operations manager"I run the fissures check before adding anything new now. My portfolio reads quieter than my colleagues', and most weeknights I sleep better than all of them put together."
W.K. · 42 · EngineerWhat readers ask before signing up
Is this genuinely free, or "free"?
Genuinely free. No credit card, no trial that quietly becomes a subscription, no paid tier hidden behind lesson three. The guide and the lessons cost nothing — full stop. If a paid product ever appears, you'll see it stated plainly on the page — never tucked into the small print.
Numbers aren't my strength — can I follow along?
You're precisely who we write for. Each lesson comes in plain English with local examples, and you can finish one on the MRT ride into town. Our internal rule: if a non-finance friend can't follow a draft, we rewrite it from scratch.
Is the point to dump all my holdings?
Not our place to. We help you see your own exposure for what it is — the calls themselves stay with you. Ballast is an education outfit, not an advisory: we hold no MAS licence to recommend securities, and nothing we publish amounts to a buy, hold or sell tip on any instrument.
How do you handle my number?
We do two things: send your guide, then send your lessons. Nothing else — no cold calls, no third parties, no "partner offers" you didn't ask for. Reply "stop" and we go quiet.
How does the WhatsApp delivery work?
Pop your name and WhatsApp number in the form on this page. You'll then land on a short confirmation page. Hit the green button there, send the message we've already typed for you, and your guide arrives in chat within about a minute.
Plan beats panic.
Drawdowns don't send calendar invites. Build your plan while the screen is still calm.
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