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Trading Expectancy Calculator

Find out whether your trading system makes money on average. Enter your win rate, average win, average loss and costs to see your expectancy per trade, profit factor and break-even win rate.

Your trading stats

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Enter as a positive number
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Commission, spread and slippage, round trip

Your Results

Expectancy per trade–
Expectancy in R
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Profit factor
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Break-even win rate
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Expected result per month
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Win/loss ratio
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The expectancy formula

Expectancy = (Win rate × Average win) − (Loss rate × Average loss)

With a 45% win rate, a $180 average win and a $100 average loss: 0.45 × $180 − 0.55 × $100 = $81 − $55 = $26 per trade before costs. Subtract $4 of round-trip costs from every trade and it becomes 0.45 × $176 − 0.55 × $104 = $79.20 − $57.20 = $22 per trade. Over 40 trades a month, that is about $880.

Expectancy in R

Dividing by your average loss expresses the edge in R — multiples of the amount you risk. $22 on a $100 average loss is +0.22R. R makes systems comparable across account sizes and lets you plug the result straight into the prop firm challenge simulator.

Why win rate alone misleads

A 70% win rate with a $50 average win and a $150 average loss has negative expectancy: 0.7 × $50 − 0.3 × $150 = −$10. A 35% win rate with 2.5:1 winners is profitable. The break-even win rate shows the minimum you need for your win/loss ratio — check it alongside the risk/reward calculator.

Profit factor

Profit factor is gross profit divided by gross loss. Above 1.0 the system makes money; 1.3–2.0 is typical for robust day-trading systems. Very high values on a small sample usually mean the sample is too small, not that the edge is huge.

Where to get your numbers

Use at least 50–100 trades from one consistent strategy, taken from your journal or a careful backtest — see our guides to trading journals and backtesting software. Mixing strategies or cherry-picking trades makes the result meaningless.

Frequently asked questions

What is trading expectancy?
Expectancy is the average amount you can expect to win or lose per trade over a large number of trades. It combines your win rate with the size of your average win and average loss: (win rate × average win) − (loss rate × average loss).
What is a good expectancy?
Any expectancy above zero after costs means a system is profitable on average. Many traders express it in R — risk units — where +0.2R to +0.5R per trade is a solid edge for active strategies. What matters most is that it stays positive over a large sample.
How many trades do I need to trust my expectancy?
Small samples are noisy. Treat results from fewer than 50 trades as a rough guide, and aim for 100 or more trades from one consistent strategy before relying on the number.

This calculator is an educational tool. Results depend entirely on the inputs you provide and do not predict future trading results.