How to measure your own performance

First: the question is not how often you were right

Hit rate is the most quoted metric and the easiest to misread. It means nothing without the average win and average loss beside it. Winning 80% of the time for small amounts and losing the other 20% for large ones is a negative business.

The reverse holds too: a 35% hit rate can be excellent if each win pays for three losses. That is why hit rate belongs later in the sequence, as a supporting number, never as the first thing on the screen.

The metric that answers whether it is worth it: expectancy

Expectancy is the average result per trade. In money, it is what you expect to take home, on average, each time you send an order. Positive, the strategy compounds; negative, the account only survives while luck lasts.

The calculation combines four numbers you already have: hit rate, average win, loss rate and average loss. Multiply what you win by how often you win, subtract what you lose by how often you lose. In TCC it appears as Expectancy on the account screen, labelled as a per-trade figure.

A slightly positive expectancy over many trades is worth more than a high one over three. The number only starts to mean something after a decent sample, and treating it with suspicion in the first weeks is the honest posture.

The metric that sums up the balance: profit factor

Profit factor is everything that came in divided by everything that went out. Above 1, gross wins beat gross losses. Below, they do not. It is the most direct summary there is, and TCC shows it as Profit Factor on both the account screen and the dashboard.

Its limitation: it cannot tell many small wins apart from one enormous win that carried the whole period. A profit factor of 1.8 resting on a single trade is fragile, and the number hides that fragility. So it travels with Best Day and Worst Day, which reveal whether the result depends on one event.

The one that sets the target: risk-reward

Risk-reward compares the distance to the target with the distance to the stop. It does not measure the past: it defines which hit rate your strategy needs in order to break even. With target equal to stop, you need to win more than half the time. With target at twice the stop, far less.

It is the only metric here that you choose before trading, which makes it the most actionable. The minimum hit rate calculator performs exactly that conversion, and it is worth running before deciding where the target goes.

Sharpe, Kelly, MAE and MFE

Sharpe measures return per unit of swing, using the standard deviation of results. It is useful for comparing strategies with different volatilities and is common in prop firm and fund reporting. Over a short individual track record it moves too much to mean much.

The Kelly criterion computes the fraction of capital that maximises long-run growth. The formula assumes you know your hit rate and your win-loss ratio precisely, which is rarely true. In practice people apply a fraction of the output, precisely because the full number is too aggressive.

MAE and MFE look inside the trade: the worst and best point it passed through before closing. They are the metrics that tell you whether your stop is too wide or your target too short. They need tick-level data, so they usually come from the execution platform rather than from account tracking.

In TCC, Sharpe and Kelly appear on the analytics screen, from the TCC Command plan up, calculated from your own results. MAE and MFE TCC does not calculate, because they depend on data from inside each trade that account tracking does not receive.

When money comes in and out: TWR and MWR

Every metric above looks at trades. A live account raises another question none of them answers: how much did your money earn, given that you deposited and withdrew along the way. There are two different answers, and both are correct.

TWR, the time-weighted return, chains the result of each period while neutralising capital coming in and going out. It judges the strategy: it answers how well you trade, as if the balance had never changed size.

MWR, the money-weighted return, is the internal rate of return of your actual cash flows. It judges your pocket: it accounts for how much capital was exposed at each moment. Depositing just before a drawdown worsens MWR without changing the quality of the strategy, which TWR keeps measuring the same way.

When the two diverge a lot, the problem is rarely the strategy: it is the timing of deposits and withdrawals. In TCC both appear side by side in the financial module, from the TCC Command plan up, calculated from the capital movements you record.

The order that works

Start with profit factor, which answers in one number whether the period closed positive. If it is above 1, move to expectancy, which says whether the result holds per trade rather than by luck. Then look at best and worst day, to see whether one isolated event carried everything.

Only then does hit rate enter, alongside average win and average loss, to explain where the result came from. And risk-reward closes the loop by pointing at what to change on the next trade.

On a prop account one number sits above all of these: the distance to the loss limit. Excellent performance on a thin margin is still an account at risk of being closed, and none of the metrics on this page captures that.

• 1. Profit factor — did the period close positive?
• 2. Expectancy — does the result hold per trade?
• 3. Best and worst day — did one event carry it?
• 4. Hit rate with average win and loss — where did it come from?
• 5. Risk-reward — what to change next?

FAQ

What is a good profit factor?

Above 1 already means gross wins beat gross losses. Very high values over few trades usually come from one isolated result rather than consistency. A small sample misleads in any metric.

Can I have a high hit rate and still lose money?

Yes, and it is common. Winning often for small amounts and losing rarely for large ones produces exactly that. It is why hit rate is never read on its own.

How many trades before the numbers mean anything?

There is no magic number, but dozens of trades say little and hundreds start to say something. Be suspicious of any metric computed over a sample that would fit in one week.

Does TCC calculate Sharpe and Kelly?

Yes, on the analytics screen, from the TCC Command plan up, alongside TWR and MWR in the financial module. Profit Factor and Expectancy also appear on each account screen. MAE and MFE TCC does not calculate.