Win Rate is the share of your closed trades that made money.
Win Rate = winning trades / closed trades x 100
On saral.money only realized round trips count. Positions still open at the end of the backtest are excluded, and a trade that closed at exactly zero profit is counted as a win.
Win Rate on its own is not a result
This is the important part. A high Win Rate can belong to a losing system and a low one to an excellent system, because the metric ignores how large each outcome was. Expectancy per trade is what decides the outcome:
expectancy = win_rate x avg_win - (1 - win_rate) x avg_loss
Illustrative arithmetic:
| Strategy | Win Rate | Avg win | Avg loss | Expectancy per trade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | 70% | 2.0% | 6.0% | 0.70 x 2.0 - 0.30 x 6.0 = -0.4% |
| B | 35% | 12.0% | 3.0% | 0.35 x 12.0 - 0.65 x 3.0 = +2.25% |
Strategy A wins seven times out of ten and loses money. Strategy B is wrong roughly two trades in three and compounds. Always read Win Rate alongside the average win and average loss printed next to it, and alongside Profit Factor.
What to expect by strategy type
| Strategy family | Typical Win Rate shape |
|---|---|
| Trend following and momentum | Low, often 35% to 45%, with a few large winners carrying the book |
| Mean reversion and oversold bounces | High, often 60% to 75%, with occasional severe losers |
| Diversified multi-factor rebalancing | Middling, since each rebalance closes both leaders and laggards |
Caveats
Win Rate is the most behaviourally dangerous number on the analytics screen. A high figure feels like competence, and it pulls you toward cutting winners early to keep the streak intact. The disposition effect describes exactly this pull, and it is the mechanism that turns a profitable rule set into an unprofitable discretionary one.
Counting a zero-profit trade as a win nudges the figure up slightly on strategies with many scratch exits.
Trade count matters more than the percentage. A 65% Win Rate across 18 trades tells you almost nothing.