Trading Journal Analyzer

Profit factor = Total Wins / Total Losses. It shows actual profitability regardless of win rate. You can have 30% win rate but 3.0 profit factor if you cut losses quickly and let winners run big. Conversely, 70% win rate with 0.8 profit factor means you're losing money (small wins, huge losses). Professional traders target profit factor above 2.0. Win rate alone is misleading - it's the combination of win rate AND average win/loss size that determines success.

Expectancy is your average profit or loss per trade over time. Formula: (Win% × Avg Win) - (Loss% × Avg Loss). Positive expectancy means you make money long-term. If expectancy is ₹100, you make ₹100 per trade on average. Multiply expectancy by number of trades to project annual profit. A strategy with ₹50 expectancy and 200 trades/year = ₹10,000/year. Focus on improving expectancy by increasing avg win, decreasing avg loss, or boosting win rate.

Minimum 30 trades for basic statistical significance, 50-100 trades for reliable data, 200+ trades for high confidence. With fewer than 30 trades, your stats could be due to luck (positive or negative). If you're developing a new strategy, paper trade or backtest 100+ times before risking real money. Review stats every 50 trades to identify performance trends. Don't make major strategy changes based on 5-10 trades - that's insufficient sample size.

Declining metrics indicate: 1) Market conditions have changed (your edge disappeared), 2) Psychological issues (overconfidence, revenge trading), 3) Increased position sizing causing stress, 4) Strategy worked initially but is now curve-fitted, 5) You stopped following rules. Solutions: Take break to reset psychology, review recent losing trades for patterns, reduce position size, return to strict rule-following, consider strategy adaptation, or develop new strategy if edge truly gone.

Only if you maintain positive expectancy. More trades with negative expectancy = faster losses. Quality > Quantity. Professional traders take 2-5 high-quality setups per week rather than 20 mediocre ones. Trading more doesn't increase profits - trading better does. Calculate: Annual Profit = Expectancy × Number of Trades. Improve expectancy first (better entries, risk management), then consider increasing frequency. Over-trading is a top killer of trading accounts.

Professionals track: 1) Win rate, Profit factor, Expectancy (core metrics), 2) Average win/loss ratio, 3) Maximum drawdown and recovery time, 4) Consecutive wins/losses (streaks), 5) Performance by day of week, time of day, 6) Performance by strategy/setup type, 7) Sharpe Ratio, 8) Risk-adjusted returns, 9) Holding period analysis, 10) Slippage and commissions impact. Use detailed journaling software like Edgewonk, TraderSync, or detailed Excel spreadsheets. Review monthly.