Trading Expectancy Calculator
Find out if your trading strategy has a positive edge — before you risk real money on it.
Expectancy assumes consistent execution. Real results vary with market conditions and trade management.
What is trading expectancy?
Expectancy is the average amount you can expect to make or lose per trade over a large sample. It combines win rate and trade size into a single number that tells you whether your system makes or loses money in the long run — regardless of individual outcomes.
The formula
A positive expectancy means your strategy makes money on average. A negative expectancy means it loses. Even a strategy with a 30% win rate can have high positive expectancy if average wins are 3× larger than average losses.
Why win rate alone tells you nothing
A trader with a 70% win rate who loses $300 on losers and wins $100 on winners has an expectancy of –$20 per trade. They are losing money despite winning most trades. Conversely, a 40% win rate with $250 average win and $100 average loss yields +$40 expectancy — consistently profitable.
What is a good expectancy?
Any positive number is technically a good expectancy. What matters more is expectancy relative to your trade frequency. $10/trade × 50 trades/month = $500/month. Scaling requires keeping expectancy stable as position sizes grow.