TRADING STATISTICS · WHAT MATTERS
A normal day-trading win rate is 40-60%, and it means almost nothing on its own — expectancy (average R per trade) and profit factor (gross profit ÷ gross loss) decide whether you're profitable.
Last updated: July 2026
WIN RATE
A win rate in the 40-60% range is a common benchmark among experienced traders. Losing close to half of your trades isn't a warning sign by itself — it's the expected result of most strategies that let winners run and cut losers early.
Chasing a higher win rate is often counterproductive: it usually means taking profit too early and letting losers sit too long, which quietly damages your risk/reward per trade even as the win-rate number goes up.
Many small wins and a few outsized losers can still lose money overall — win rate alone doesn't capture that.
A trader winning 40% of trades can be highly profitable if winners are meaningfully larger than losers.
PROFIT FACTOR
Profit factor is calculated as total gross profit divided by total gross loss across all your trades. A profit factor of 1.0 means you broke even before costs; anything above 1.0 means your winners outweighed your losers in dollar terms.
| Profit factor | What it means |
|---|---|
| Below 1.0 | Losing overall — gross losses exceed gross profits |
| 1.0 – 1.5 | Marginal edge — thin margin for error |
| 1.5 – 2.0 | Good edge — a solid, repeatable system |
| Above 2.0 | Excellent edge — strong risk/reward discipline |
EXPECTANCY
Expectancy is calculated as:
Expectancy = (win% × average win) − (loss% × average loss)
Expressing results in R-multiples — where 1R is the amount you risked on a trade — lets you compare expectancy across different position sizes and instruments. A system with positive expectancy makes money on average over a large enough sample, even though individual trades still lose.
SAMPLE SIZE
Win rate, profit factor, and expectancy are all averages — and averages built on a handful of trades are unreliable. A short winning or losing streak can push any of these numbers far from your true edge. Around 60 trades is a reasonable minimum before these stats start to reflect your actual performance rather than recent variance.
HOW FINOTAUR HELPS
Win rate, profit factor, and expectancy are calculated from your real, broker-synced trades — no spreadsheet formulas to maintain.
Finotaur flags when your trade count is large enough for these stats to be statistically meaningful, so you're not reading too much into an early streak.
FAQ
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Connect your broker and Finotaur computes all three automatically.