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Trading Expectancy Calculator
Expectancy = (Win Rate × Avg Win) − (Loss Rate × Avg Loss). It's the only number that tells you whether you have an edge. If it's positive, you have a scalable business. If it's negative, you're not trading — you're paying the market to press buttons.
With 45% wins at 2R average, you have a scalable edge — you only need to win more than 33% to be profitable. Survival and discipline do the rest.
Stop obsessing over win rate
You can be right 35% of the time and still crush it — if your reward justifies the risk. The breakeven win rate for any reward-to-risk ratio is Loss ÷ (Win + Loss): at 2:1 you need just 33.4%, at 3:1 only 25%. This is why professionals hunt asymmetric setups instead of certainty — and why position sizing (keeping every loss at exactly 1R) is what makes the math work. Size your trades with our position size calculator.
One caveat: expectancy only stabilises over a sample. Judge yourself over 100 trades, not 10 — and journal every one so the numbers are real, not remembered.
Frequently asked questions
What is expectancy in trading?
Expectancy is the average amount you can expect to win or lose per trade, expressed in R (risk units) or dollars. The formula: Expectancy = (Win Rate × Average Win) − (Loss Rate × Average Loss). Positive expectancy means you have a real, scalable edge; negative expectancy means you will lose money over time no matter how disciplined you are.
Can I be profitable with a low win rate?
Yes. With a 2:1 reward-to-risk ratio you only need to win about 33% of trades to break even — anything above that is profit. A trader winning 40% of trades at 3R average wins makes money; a trader winning 70% at 0.3R average wins loses it. Reward-to-risk matters more than win rate.
What is a good expectancy per trade?
Anything consistently positive after costs is workable. Established discretionary traders often run +0.2R to +0.5R per trade. The number matters less than the consistency — expectancy is only meaningful across a large sample, typically 50–100+ trades.
Why do traders obsess over win rate?
Ego. Being right feels good, so traders chase high win rates by cutting winners early and letting losers run — which destroys reward-to-risk and produces a high win rate with negative expectancy. You're not in this game to be right; you're in it to make asymmetric bets.
Your real expectancy, computed from your real trades.
LogYourTrade tracks every trade in R-multiples and shows your live expectancy, profit factor and process score — no spreadsheet, no selective memory. The numbers don't lie, and that's the point.