Performance
A strategy that wins 72% of the time can still lose money, and one that wins 40% of the time can pay well. You need to know your own numbers: what a trade earns on average, how bad the worst stretch was, which structure carries the account and which one gives it back. Performance computes them from your closed trades in the Journal, for one account or all of them, over the period you choose.
It reads the same record you can edit on the Fills tab, so correcting a fill or a fee changes the figures. Only closed trades count, meaning every contract of the trade nets to zero. A trade is dated by its last fill, so it sits in the month and period where it ended. Open trades are not included.
How traders use it
Section titled “How traders use it”- Judge a strategy by expectancy, not win rate. A condor selling at 85% probability wins often and loses big. Expectancy and Profit factor say whether the wins pay for the losses.
- Find what to stop trading. In By structure, a structure with many trades, a low average and a red bar is costing you. In By underlying, do the same for RUT against SPX.
- Size for the drawdown you saw. Max drawdown shows how far the account fell from a peak, and between which dates. If you would have stopped trading in that stretch, the size is too large.
- Check whether fees decide a strategy. Commissions as a share of gross wins is large on 0DTE flies with thin credits. Switch Include commissions off and on to see what is left.
- Compare recent with all-time. Switch Period from All time to Past 90 days. A strategy that worked for two years and not this quarter shows in the equity curve.
- Compare accounts. If you trade a different strategy in each account (an IRA calendar and a margin BWB), pick each in Account and compare.