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[Info] [Info] Win rate, R:R, profit factor, Sharpe explained
If the wall of numbers on an EA or copy trader page leaves you unsure what to look at, these five are all you need.
1. Win rate
- Winning trades ÷ all trades
- Meaningless on its own. A 90% win rate still loses money if the losses are huge.
2. Reward:risk
- Average win ÷ average loss
- Read it with win rate. Break-even win rate = 1 ÷ (1 + R:R)
- R:R 1 → profitable above 50%
- R:R 2 → profitable above 33%
- R:R 0.2 → needs 83%+ to profit (common in martingale EAs)
3. Profit factor
- Gross profit ÷ gross loss
- Below 1.0: losing system / 1.3–2.0: decent / 3+: suspicious — short sample or overfitting
- Trust it once there are 100+ trades.
4. Sharpe ratio
- Return ÷ volatility of returns: how calmly the same return was earned.
- Annualized, above 1 is generally good, above 2 excellent.
- Strategies that postpone losses, like martingale and grid, can show unrealistically high Sharpe.
5. Recovery factor
- Net profit ÷ max drawdown amount
- Above 3 means it earned plenty relative to its drawdown.
Read them in combination
| Pattern | What it means |
|---|---|
| High win rate + low R:R + small drawdown | Fine so far, but suspect martingale or grid |
| 40% win rate + R:R 2.5 + PF 1.6 | Trend-following; frequent losing months are normal |
| PF 4 + 30 trades | Too small a sample; hold judgment |
EADesk cards show total return, max drawdown, win rate, track record and risk score together. Don't judge on one number — read the combination.
