Trade journaling · Intermediate

Calculating Win Rate Versus Risk-Reward

A 1-minute lesson from the MarketPro academy, one of 14 in trade journaling and review.

Last reviewed 15 September 2026 by the MarketPro research desk · Editorial policy

Short answer

Two trading strategies can have very different win rates yet be equally profitable, because profitability depends on both how often you win and how much you gain or lose on average. Understanding the relationship between win rate and risk-reward ratio is essential to interpreting your own journal.

Win rate is simply the percentage of trades that close in profit. Risk-reward ratio compares the average size of your winners to the average size of your losers. A strategy with a low win rate can still be viable if winners are large relative to losers, while a high win rate strategy can lose money overall if losses are large relative to wins.

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Not investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

A strategy winning less than half the time can still work if average wins meaningfully exceed average losses
A strategy winning most of the time can still be unprofitable if occasional losses are outsized
Expectancy combines both: (win rate × average win) minus (loss rate × average loss)

Reviewing both figures together, rather than fixating on win rate alone, gives a much clearer picture of whether a strategy is working. A journal that logs the size of every win and loss makes this calculation straightforward. No calculation of past expectancy guarantees future results — markets change, and past statistics are a guide, not a promise.

Step 9 of 10 on Build Your Trading Plan

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Written and reviewed by the MarketPro research desk

MarketPro is a trading-signal and trading-education app operated by Harajuku Holdings LTD (Cyprus). Our signal desk publishes and tracks every trade idea in-app, and every page here is checked against the app's live behaviour before publishing. Last reviewed 15 September 2026. How we produce signals and content · About MarketPro

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Not investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.