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Risk & Strategy · Practical guide

Win rate alone cannot tell you whether a strategy works

A strategy can win frequently and still lose money overall. The size of gains and losses matters alongside how often each occurs. Looking only at a high percentage can hide a small number of unusually costly outcomes.

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Education, not investment advice. Examples are hypothetical. Leveraged forex can cause substantial losses; a stop order does not guarantee an execution price.

Build a ten-trade example

Imagine eight gains of five dollars and two losses of thirty dollars. The win rate is eighty percent, but the net result is a twenty-dollar loss before costs. The arithmetic is simple enough to check without a platform.

Include the missing expenses

Spread, commission, financing and conversion charges can turn a small gross advantage into a negative result. State whether any performance figure is before or after those expenses and whether open positions are included.

Inspect the distribution

An average can conceal a large tail loss or dependence on one exceptional trade. For a practice record, show each result and the running balance rather than reporting only a percentage. Ten observations are not enough to establish a dependable pattern, and a longer historical sample still cannot promise the future. The exercise teaches what the statistic leaves out, not which strategy to select.

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