Cocoa Historical Replay: 2012-05 to 2012-08
Replay 62 daily bars of cocoa from 2012-05-09 to 2012-08-06, absorbing a 13.7% drawdown that tested even seasoned traders. Step through 11 decision points, four of them critical, and receive an AI coach review of your simulated choices.
62 daily bars · 11 decision points · 2012-05 to 2012-08 · Commodities
Key facts
This window spans 89 days with a peak-to-trough drawdown of 13.7% and a 16.4% run-up.
- Max drawdown
- −13.7%
- Max run-up
- +16.4%
- Duration
- 89 days
- Largest single-day move
- −4.5%
- Bars
- 62 Daily bars
- Decision points
- 11
Every figure above is computed programmatically from this replay’s own candle series — no editorial input, no LLM. Methodology: Methodology
The market advances day by day. You only see candles up to the current day — as if you were really there.
At key decision points choose Buy / Trim / Exit / Hold. Each decision advances the timeline by one day.
After settlement you get a six-dimension score and an AI coach review. Your result enters the scenario leaderboard.
Event Replay
What happened — and what it teaches
In the summer of 2012, cocoa futures on U.S. markets entered a period of acute stress. From May 9 to August 6, 62 daily bars of price action unfolded against a backdrop of commodity market uncertainty, with the 2010s decade already proving volatile for soft commodities. For traders, this scenario presented a compressed test of conviction and capital management—a drawdown of 13.7% would have pushed many positions deeply into the red.
What unfolded was a grinding decline masked by modest overall returns. The period closed with cocoa barely higher, moving from 2364 to 2398, a mere 1.4% gain. Yet this tranquil headline number concealed violent internal turbulence: the largest single-bar move reached 4.5%, and the maximum drawdown of 13.7% meant that at the worst point, a trader was sitting on paper losses equivalent to nearly a month of normal volatility.
This scenario distills a crucial lesson: headline performance obscures the psychological toll of the journey. Eleven decision points, four of them critical, forced repeated choices about position sizing, timing, and whether to hold through pain. The gap between the serene 1.4% close and the brutal 13.7% interim drawdown is where character is tested. Traders must build processes that survive drawdowns before they can benefit from eventual recovery.