Trading Metrics That Matter: 12 to Track and 5 to Skip
One trade list, every headline metric computed, and an opinionated short list of what to track and what to ignore.
3 Nov 2026 · 6 min read
Track a small set of numbers that each answer a different question, and always show how many trades sit behind them. This page lists twelve worth tracking and five worth ignoring, and works one made-up list of 30 trades through the headline ones so you can see them side by side. The selection is our opinion; the numbers are arithmetic, not advice.
One list, every metric
Made-up results in R, in order: −1.0, +2.0, −1.0, −1.0, +1.5, −1.0, +3.0, −1.0, −1.0, −1.0, +1.1, +2.0, −1.0, −1.0, −1.0, +1.0, +2.5, −1.0, −1.0, +1.8, −1.0, −1.0, −1.0, +4.0, −1.0, +2.2, −1.0, −1.0, +1.6, −1.0. These are not any trader's trades.
| Metric | On this list | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Expectancy | +0.12R per trade | What does the average trade make? |
| R-multiple of each trade | −1.0R to +4.0R | How big was each result against what was risked? |
| Win rate, with the sample | 37% of 30 | How often does it win? |
| Average win and average loss | +2.06R and −1.00R | How big are wins against losses? |
| Break-even win rate | 32.6% | What win rate does that ratio need? |
| Profit factor | 1.19 | Did the winners outweigh the losers in total? |
| Maximum drawdown | 3.2R | How deep did the worst stretch get? |
| Recovery needed after a drawdown | by formula: L ÷ (1 − L) | What gain gets the balance back? |
| Longest losing run | 3 trades | What did the worst run feel like? |
| Sample size beside every figure | 30 trades | How much does any of this rest on? |
Read together they say something no single one does. The list is a 37% win rate that still averages +0.12R, because the average win is 2.1 times the average loss. Its worst stretch cost 3.2R, and its longest losing run was 3 trades. With 30 trades, treat every figure as a first look.
Twelve to track
- Expectancy in R. The average trade, the one number the others feed. Expectancy.
- R-multiple per trade. Needs the risk written before the trade. R-multiples.
- Win rate. Only beside its reward-to-risk. Win rate against risk-reward.
- Average win and average loss. The two inputs that make a win rate mean something.
- Break-even win rate. Your own line, from your own ratio, with costs in.
- Profit factor. A useful summary when read with the trade count. Profit factor.
- Maximum drawdown. In R or per cent, not only in money. Maximum drawdown.
- Drawdown duration. How many trades or days from peak to recovery. Depth without time is half the story.
- Longest losing run. The figure that tells you whether you could have kept going. How long runs get.
- Average cost per trade in R. Spread, commission and swap, as a share of the risk.
- Slippage against plan. The gap between the price you wanted and the price you got; for copied trades, why follower fills differ explains where it comes from.
- Rule adherence. The share of trades that followed your own rules. A grade on each trade, kept in a journal, gives you this; see what to write in a trading journal.
Five to skip, or to demote
- Win rate on its own. It cannot be read without the size of wins and losses: the list above wins 37% of the time and still averages +0.12R, while the grid shows a 70% win rate at 0.5:1 earning only +0.05R a trade.
- Profit factor without a trade count. Four trades can print a number most strategies never reach.
- Annualised figures from a few months. Multiplying a short stretch up to a year says more about the arithmetic than about the method.
- The biggest winner as a headline. It is the least repeatable number you own. Compute everything with and without it, as in the profit factor example.
- Risk-adjusted ratios on a few dozen trades. Sharpe-style ratios assume far more data than a trading account usually has by the time someone wants to quote one.
Where to start
If you track nothing today, start with the result and the risk of every trade; every metric on this page falls out of those two columns plus the date. How to keep a trading journal covers the routine, and the sample-size simulation shows how long to wait before believing a figure.
We're working on a free journal and a backtester, with no date yet. Today Trepeat is a trade copier for MT4, MT5 and cTrader, currently on demo accounts, and you can add notes, a grade and screenshots to any copied trade once it closes, with a calendar of your results.
The journal exports to Excel (.xlsx) and does not calculate any metric on this page today, so they run in a spreadsheet on that export; the journal documentation says what it holds. The lot size calculator sets the size that fixes 1R, and the glossary defines the terms.
Written by the Trepeat team.