Win Rate
Win rate is the percentage of closed trades that ended in profit. It is the most quoted and most misused statistic in trading: on its own it says nothing about profitability, because it ignores how large the wins and losses were. A strategy's real health is win rate and average win/loss size read together.
Why can a high win rate still lose money?
Because the size of wins and losses matters as much as their frequency. A strategy that wins 90% of the time taking many tiny gains, but loses big on the remaining 10%, loses money overall — a pattern common in approaches that cut winners instantly and let losers run. The arithmetic is simple expectancy: (win rate × average win) minus (loss rate × average loss). If that number is negative, no win rate is high enough to save it. Selling strategies on win rate alone is a classic marketing trick precisely because the number feels intuitive and hides the loss side entirely.
What is a realistic win rate?
There is no universal "good" number, because win rate trades off against reward-to-risk. A trend-following strategy can be genuinely profitable winning well under half its trades, because its winners are several times larger than its losers. A mean-reversion scalping strategy may need a high win rate to survive, because each win is small. The honest question is never "is the win rate high?" but "is expectancy positive after fees, spread, and slippage, and was it measured on enough trades to mean anything?" A win rate computed from a dozen trades is noise, not evidence.
Educational content — not financial advice. Trading digital assets carries substantial risk of loss. See the full Risk Disclosure.
Volume Catcher is an analytical tool, not financial advice. Trading digital assets involves substantial risk of loss. Past performance of signals does not guarantee future results. You are solely responsible for your execution decisions and for complying with the laws of your jurisdiction.