Overview statistics

Overview answers what happened across the selected trades? It is the best starting point because it brings the result, its path, the basic shape of the edge, and the effect of costs together before you investigate more specialized statistics.

Overview is available on the Free plan. All filters and the shared calculation rules still apply.

Headline result

The headline can be viewed in three complementary units:

Net P&L is useful for understanding real monetary contribution, but it is affected by account size and position sizing. R helps compare execution across differently sized trades. Compounded return expresses saved percentage outcomes while respecting compounding, but it is not account growth. See How statistics are calculated for the formula and limitations.

Trading period is the span from the earliest selected open to the latest selected close. It describes the activity span, not necessarily the complete-month window used by risk-adjusted statistics.

Trades counts selected closed, executed trades. The activity histogram groups those trades through time, but it is not an additional return calculation.

Return history

The return graph builds a chronological path:

• Profit and R are cumulative sums.
• Percentage uses a cumulative product of return factors.
• Trades closing at the same timestamp are combined before a path point is measured.

Grouping by day, ISO week, month, quarter, or year changes how the path is summarized. Profit and R are added within a period. Percentage returns are compounded within that period.

Only periods containing measured activity appear in this chart summary. This differs from monthly risk statistics, which insert inactive complete months as 0% observations to preserve calendar time.

Period statistics

Profitable-period rate is:

positive active periods / all active periods * 100

The selected chart unit determines whether a period is positive. Average profitable and losing periods are arithmetic means of the completed period results. Best and worst period are the highest and lowest values from the complete filtered series, not only the currently visible zoom.

Use period statistics to understand the cadence of results. A positive overall result can still be concentrated in very few periods, while a moderate headline result may have been produced steadily.

Win rate

Win rate uses saved Win, Loss, and Break-even statuses. Your Journal Settings determine whether break-even trades are excluded, treated as losses, or treated as non-losing outcomes.

Win rate is descriptive, not a complete measure of edge. A strategy can win frequently and still lose money when its average loss is much larger than its average win. Review it with trade expectancy, profit factor, and average win/loss ratio.

Financial break-even calculations use a separate decisive rate that always excludes break-even outcomes. See Performance.

Trade expectancy

Trade expectancy is the average observed result per trade:

expectancy = sum(observed outcomes) / observed trade count

It can be displayed in Profit, R, or Percentage. Percentage expectancy is the arithmetic average of individual saved trade returns. It is not the compounded headline return.

Trade expectancy describes what one observation in this selected sample produced on average. R expectancy is especially useful when comparing strategies or periods with different position sizes. It does not promise that the next trade will produce the same result.

Profit factor

Profit factor compares total positive outcomes with total negative outcomes:

profit factor = sum(positive outcomes) / abs(sum(negative outcomes))

A value above 1 means gross positive outcomes exceeded gross negative outcomes in the selected unit. A value below 1 means they did not. A value of 2 means the sample produced two units of positive result for every one unit of negative result.

If there are no negative numerical outcomes, the denominator is undefined and profit factor is unavailable rather than infinite. If there are negative outcomes but no positive outcomes, 0 is valid.

Average win/loss ratio

Also called payoff ratio, this compares the typical positive outcome with the typical negative outcome:

Average win/loss = average(positive outcomes) / abs(average(negative outcomes))

It requires at least one positive and one negative numerical observation. A ratio of 1.5 means the average positive outcome was one and a half times the size of the average negative outcome.

Profit factor incorporates both frequency and magnitude. Average win/loss isolates magnitude. Two strategies can therefore have the same payoff ratio and very different profit factors because their win frequencies differ.

Maximum drawdown and run-up

Maximum drawdown is the deepest decline from a previous peak in the chronological closed-trade path. Maximum run-up is the largest rise from a previous trough.

For additive Profit or R paths, Trading Vault measures the cumulative difference. Percentage uses a compounded index:

percentage drawdown = (trough index / peak index - 1) * 100
percentage run-up   = (peak index / trough index - 1) * 100

Percentage drawdown is not the subtraction of two percentage points and is not marked-to-market account equity. It sees results only when selected trades close. Open-trade movement and deposits or withdrawals do not enter this path.

Use these headline extremes as signals to investigate the full episode history on Risk.

Long and short performance

The direction summary partitions the selected population by the saved Long or Short direction. It shows each side's trade count, share, and net return. Each direction is calculated independently:

• Profit and R are summed within the direction.
• Percentage returns are compounded within the direction.
• Unknown or other directions do not enter the long/short share denominator.

The underlying analysis can also calculate trade expectancy, win rate, profit factor, and payoff ratio for each side. Use Compare when you want a fuller direction comparison with several metrics at once.

Trade outcomes

Trade Outcomes uses saved status to divide the selection into wins, losses, and break-even trades. For each status it can show:

• Count and share
• Total or average result
• Average duration
• Average result by active day, week, month, or year

Outcome result in Profit or R is additive. Percentage is compounded inside that status population. Average percentage per trade is an arithmetic mean.

The Summarise by control belongs only to this card:

• Total adds or compounds all eligible observations.
• Average per trade divides by the observed population for that return unit.
• Average active period calculates each active period first, then averages those period results.

Inactive periods are not inserted into this card. Do not compare an active-month outcome average directly with monthly Sharpe or Sortino, which use a different observation-window policy.

Gross result and costs

Gross result is performance before the adjustments already represented in net profit. Costs & adjustments measures the difference:

costs and adjustments = sum(net profit - gross profit)

It includes commissions, fees, roll, dividends, and any other saved adjustment included in net profit. A negative value reduced the result, while a positive value improved it. Only trades with both gross and net profit observed can enter this paired calculation.

Cost impact R normalizes the same difference by initial financial risk on each eligible trade:

trade cost impact R = (net profit - gross profit) / abs(initial financial risk)
total cost impact R = sum(trade cost impact R)

This uses initial financial risk rather than a later net-risk value. It is useful for comparing cost drag across account sizes, instruments, and position sizes. Check its coverage before drawing conclusions because trades missing gross profit or initial risk are excluded.

A useful Overview workflow

1. Confirm the filters, trade count, and activity span.
2. Read the headline in Profit, R, and Percentage rather than relying on one unit.
3. Inspect the return path for concentration, reversals, and changes through time.
4. Review win rate, trade expectancy, profit factor, and payoff ratio together.
5. Check drawdown and run-up for the path behind the total.
6. Compare long and short contribution.
7. Finish with outcome and cost coverage before moving to Performance.