Trading & signals glossary
What is expectancy in trading?
Expectancy is what a trading system makes or loses on average per trade. It combines win rate with the average win and the average loss; if it’s positive, the system makes money over time, even if it loses plenty of trades along the way.
How it works
It answers one question: if I ran this system over and over, how much would I make or lose per trade?
Measured in R, it doesn’t depend on account size: +0.2 R per trade is +20 R over a hundred trades.
With few trades it’s an estimate with a wide margin of error, which is why we show it with a confidence interval.
40% × 2 R
+0.8 R from the winners
60% × −1 R
−0.6 R from the losers
Expectancy
+0.2 R per trade
100 trades
≈ +20 R
How to calculate it
E = win rate × average win − (1 − win rate) × average loss
in R: E = total R ÷ number of trades
Example: a system that loses more often than it wins
- 40% win rate, making 2R when it’s right and losing 1R when it’s wrong.
- E = 0.4 × 2 − 0.6 × 1 = 0.8 − 0.6 = +0.2 R per trade.
- Over 100 trades: about +20 R, even though it lost 60 of them.
- Risking 1% per trade, that’s roughly +20% on the account.
Our data · Verpips
What we measure in signal channels
- −0.05 R
- median expectancy per trade
- 6 of 18
- channels with positive expectancy
- 0.84
- median risk/reward ratio
One dot per channel measured
6 in profit · 12 in the red
A typical trade
To break even with those numbers you need to be right more than 57% of the time.
The median expectancy across the 18 channels we fully audit is −0.05 R per trade, and only 6 have a positive one. The median risk/reward ratio is 0.84: on average, they make less than they risk when they’re right.
Verpips data as of Oct 7, 2026, measured against the real price. See how we measure and the channel directory.
Types and variations
- Per trade
- The average R per trade. The most useful for comparing.
- In dollars
- The same idea in dollars; it depends on the size of each trade.
- With an interval
- The range where the true expectancy most likely sits, given the sample.
Why it matters when choosing a signal channel
It’s the number that tells you whether following a channel makes sense in the long run. Neither win rate nor pips can tell you that; expectancy sums them up. If it’s negative, the more you trade, the more you lose.
Common traps
- Calculating it from the signals the channel chose to post, not from all of them.
- Presenting it off a handful of trades as if it were final.
- Calculating it in pips instead of R.
Key takeaways
- ✓Expectancy = the average gain you can expect per trade.
- ✓Positive: the system makes money over time; negative: it loses.
- ✓It combines win rate, average win and average loss.
- ✓With few trades, look at it next to its confidence interval.
FAQ: expectancy
What does positive expectancy mean?
That on average, each trade makes something. Over enough trades, the result tends to come out positive.
How do you calculate expectancy?
Win rate × average win − (1 − win rate) × average loss, or simply the average R across all trades.
How many trades do you need before you can trust it?
The more the better: under 30, the margin of error is huge. That’s why we only award the Verified badge when the entire interval sits above zero.
Channel by channel
See these numbers for each channel, not as an average.
With a free account you see each channel’s result in R, its drawdown, and what it announced versus what actually happened.