Understanding the ratios

The Ratios panel in Portfolio Performance goes well beyond a simple profit-and-loss figure. These statistical metrics are what let you judge how robust a strategy really is, rather than whether it happened to make money over a given period.

Why ratios matter

A strategy can be profitable and still be fragile, or break even on paper yet be fundamentally sound. The ratios summarise the quality of your results — the balance between your wins and losses, and what you can reasonably expect from the strategy over the long run.

Key ratios

• Profit Factor — compares your gross gains to your gross losses. A value above 1 means the winners outweigh the losers; the higher it is, the more cushion the strategy has.
• Mathematical Expectation — how much you can expect to gain or lose, on average, per trade. It turns your historical results into a single forward-looking number.

Reading them correctly

One portfolio at a time

For the ratios to be meaningful, select a single portfolio in the filter at the top of Portfolio Performance. Each portfolio should map to one strategy — mixing strategies in the same set of trades distorts the ratios and makes them statistically meaningless.