Win Rate
The percentage of a strategy's trades that closed profitably.
Win rate is the simplest trading statistic: the number of winning trades divided by the total number of trades, expressed as a percentage.
It's also one of the most misunderstood. A high win rate does not automatically mean a profitable strategy, and a low win rate does not automatically mean an unprofitable one — it depends entirely on the size of the average win relative to the average loss.
Win Rate = Winning Trades ÷ Total Trades × 100
A trend-following strategy might win only 42% of its trades but remain highly profitable, because its average winning trade is three times the size of its average losing trade. A mean-reversion strategy might win 70% of trades with a much tighter win/loss size ratio.
Why it matters
Win rate should always be read together with profit factor and average trade size — never in isolation. A strategy's win rate says more about its trading style (trend-following vs. mean-reversion vs. scalping) than about how good it is.