Win rate and expectancy calculator
Win rate alone does not tell you whether a strategy makes money. Enter your win rate (or wins and losses), average win and average loss to see what each trade earns on average.
Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded.
How it works
The formula
Expectancy = win rate × average win − loss rate × average loss.
Example: 45% × 300 − 55% × 200 = 135 − 110 = 25 per trade. A strategy that is right less than half the time can still make money when its wins are larger than its losses.
Break-even win rate
Break-even win rate = average loss ÷ (average win + average loss). With wins of 300 and losses of 200 it is 40%: below that, the strategy loses money.
Before you trust the number
Use results after commissions and slippage. And a few dozen trades say little: the win rate of 30 trades can be off by 15 points either way just by chance.
Questions
What is a good win rate for trading?
There is no good win rate on its own. 35% can be excellent with large wins, and 70% can lose money with small wins and large losses. Look at the expectancy.
What is expectancy in trading?
The average amount a strategy makes or loses per trade, counting winners and losers together. Positive expectancy after costs is the minimum for a strategy worth trading.
What is a good profit factor?
Profit factor is gross profit divided by gross loss. Above 1 the strategy makes money; many traders look for 1.3 to 2 after costs, and treat much higher figures from a backtest with suspicion.
How many trades do I need?
More than you think. With 100 trades the win rate is still uncertain by several points; a few hundred trades over different market conditions tell you much more.
Test the idea on years of data, not one trade
AlphaPrime generates and backtests futures strategies on your GPU, with contract specs, trading costs and sessions built in, then exports the strategy code for your trading platform.
For education. Not investment advice. Check the exchange before you trade.