Performance
Average outcome per trade from win rate and average win and loss. The number win rate hides.
Average outcome per trade from win rate and average win and loss. The number win rate hides. The page states the equation, the units it expects and the rounding it applies, so the result can be reproduced by hand.
A calculator gives you a number. This one feeds the next: account to risk, risk to position size, position size to the trade, and the trade to expectancy, drawdown and risk of ruin.
See the performance tools →Dollar expectancy depends on position size, so it cannot compare two strategies traded at different sizes. Expectancy in R can.
A strategy winning 45% of the time, with $300 winners and $150 losers:
Fifty-two dollars per trade, losing more often than winning. Over 200 trades, $10,500 — arrived at through 110 losses.
Yes — this example wins 45% of the time and earns $52.50 per trade. What matters is the size of the wins relative to the losses, not the frequency.
In R terms, anything reliably above zero is worth trading; +0.2R is strong. In dollars it depends entirely on your position size, which is why R is the comparable figure.
Because it is estimated from a sample. Early on, a handful of trades moves it substantially — which is a property of the estimate, not of the strategy.
A calculator answers one question and raises the next. These are the ones this figure feeds into.
Your hit rate, and the rate a given risk/reward needs before it earns anything.
The growth-optimal fraction, and the reason most traders size well below it.
Peak-to-trough decline, and the gain required to climb back out of it.
Expectancy Calculator · rounding shown to the precision displayed