Win Rate
Percentage of trades closed with positive net P&L. Won / Total × 100%.
- Computed from
- Trades list
- Scope
- Single report
- Range
- 0 – 100%
- Direction
- Higher is better
Win rate is the share of trades that closed in profit. It's the most intuitive trading statistic — and the most misunderstood. A high win rate feels good but says nothing on its own: you can win 90% of the time and still go broke if the 10% of losses are large enough.
How it's calculated
Win Rate = winning trades / total trades × 100%
- winning trades
- trades closed with net P&L > 0
- total trades
- all closed trades in the period
What it tells you
By itself: very little. Win rate only becomes meaningful when paired with how big wins are versus losses — the payoff ratio (your average win divided by your average loss). Before a system makes money it has to clear a break-even point: the minimum win rate it needs just to come out even, and that minimum depends entirely on the payoff ratio. If your average win is the same size as your average loss (a 1:1 payoff), you need to win more than half the time. If your wins are twice the size of your losses (2:1), you can win as little as a third of the time and still come out ahead. The general rule is break-even win rate = 1 ÷ (1 + payoff ratio):
| Value | Reading | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| payoff 1:1 | need > 50% | Equal-sized wins and losses. |
| payoff 2:1 | need > 33% | Wins twice the size of losses. |
| payoff 1:2 | need > 67% | Losses twice the size of wins — high bar. |
| payoff 3:1 | need > 25% | Big wins, small losses — trend-following profile. |
A high win rate isn't bad in itself — legitimate mean-reversion and scalping edges genuinely win often, with their losses kept in check. The number is neutral; the payoff ratio and the tail decide. The danger is specifically a high win rate funded by uncontrolled losses (see the red flag below).
Worked example
A scalping system wins 180 of 200 trades — a 90% win rate that looks spectacular. But the average win is +$20 and the average loss is −$220. Blend those by how often each happens — 0.9 × $20 − 0.1 × $220 — and the system earns about −$4 on every trade. That blended per-trade result is the expectancy, and here it's negative: the system loses money despite winning nine times out of ten.
Pitfalls
- High win rate ≠ profitable. The classic signature of martingale and grid systems: a long string of small wins masking a rare account-ending loss.
- Optimizing it backfires. Win rate is the most psychologically seductive metric — it feels like being right. Chasing it drives the disposition effect: cutting winners early to lock the win, and holding losers to avoid booking the loss. That raises win rate while shrinking the payoff ratio — pumping the vanity number while quietly destroying expectancy, the only thing that matters.
- Always read with payoff ratio. Win rate and payoff ratio only mean something together — their interplay is captured cleanly by expectancy and profit factor.
- Needs a sample. Win rate on 20–30 trades is noise — a couple of trades swing it ten points. Treat it as meaningful only over a few hundred trades.
- A low win rate means long losing streaks. Even a profitable 30–40%-win system routinely strings together 5–6 losers in a row — size positions to survive the cold runs.
- Breakeven trades. How a record treats exactly-zero trades shifts the rate slightly; EquityTruth counts only strictly positive net P&L as a win (breakeven is neither a win nor a loss).
A win rate above 85% paired with a payoff ratio below 0.5 (your average win is less than half your average loss) is the fingerprint of a strategy that hides its risk — small steady wins funded by occasional catastrophic losses. Check max drawdown and profit concentration.