Trading Style? High Win Rate? High Risk Reward? Can't Have Both
Win Rate, Risk/Reward, and Finding the Profitable Balance
You generally need to make a choice in your trading Forex: either have a high win rate % and low risk reward (hedge traders or scalp traders) or low win rate % and high risk reward. (day traders and swing traders).
Either can be successful, but it is a personal choice and different style of trading. Sometimes you can change depending on: pair, price, time & session that you are trading. End of Tokyo to end of London is high volume and liquidity daily time, so day trading might work and swing trading mid week. Hedging is mostly a high end money way of trading related to taking positions on both sides of a pair and scalping is going for many trades in same session, but make little pips per trade, but having high leverage per trade. These are great anytime of session, but do pretty good during low liquidity and volume times.
Win-rate is how many trades you win, usually given as a percentage. Such as 50%, 5 out of 10, or 50 out of 100. Means 50% of trades placed result in a profit.
Win rate is what many people focus on. They want to be right, often! Yet reward:risk (R:R) is just as important. R:R is how much a trader wins on winning trades versus how much they lose on a losing trade.
Most day traders focus on the win rate or win/loss ratio. The allure is to eventually reach that stage where nearly all their trades are winners. While this appears to make sense, having a high win rate doesn't mean you'll be a successful trader or even a profitable one. Your win rate is how many trades you win out of all your trades. For example, if you make five trades a day and win three, your daily win rate is three of five or 60%. If there are 20 trading days in the month, and you win 60 out of 100 trades, your monthly win rate is 60%.
You generally need to make a choice in your trading Forex: either have a high win rate % and low risk reward (hedge traders or scalp traders) or low win rate % and high risk reward. (day traders and swing traders).
Either can be successful, but it is a personal choice and different style of trading. Sometimes you can change depending on: pair, price, time & session that you are trading. End of Tokyo to end of London is high volume and liquidity daily time, so day trading might work and swing trading mid week. Hedging is mostly a high end money way of trading related to taking positions on both sides of a pair and scalping is going for many trades in same session, but make little pips per trade, but having high leverage per trade. These are great anytime of session, but do pretty good during low liquidity and volume times.
Win-rate is how many trades you win, usually given as a percentage. Such as 50%, 5 out of 10, or 50 out of 100. Means 50% of trades placed result in a profit.
Win rate is what many people focus on. They want to be right, often! Yet reward:risk (R:R) is just as important. R:R is how much a trader wins on winning trades versus how much they lose on a losing trade.
Most day traders focus on the win rate or win/loss ratio. The allure is to eventually reach that stage where nearly all their trades are winners. While this appears to make sense, having a high win rate doesn't mean you'll be a successful trader or even a profitable one. Your win rate is how many trades you win out of all your trades. For example, if you make five trades a day and win three, your daily win rate is three of five or 60%. If there are 20 trading days in the month, and you win 60 out of 100 trades, your monthly win rate is 60%.