MWR — money-weighted return
MWR (money-weighted return) is the internal rate of return of your money: it accounts for how much capital was exposed at each moment, not just percentage performance. Run this calculation now: how to measure your own performance
What it answers
MWR is the rate that zeroes the present value of every cash flow — deposits negative, withdrawals positive, final balance positive. It answers 'what did my money earn', including good or bad timing of deposits.
Example: you start with 10k, gain 10% in month one, add 90k, and lose 5% in month two. TWR is 1.10 × 0.95 − 1 = 4.5%, positive. MWR is negative, because most of the capital arrived just in time for the bad month.
Which one to use
Judge the strategy by TWR; judge the wealth by MWR. A trader with good TWR and poor MWR trades well and picks bad moments to scale up — actionable information, not an accounting detail.
In prop firms MWR also exposes the real cost of challenge fees: every evaluation bought is an outflow that the funded account's percentage return never shows.