Expectancy per Trade: How Much Do You Make on Average?

The bottom-line number that proves whether you have an edge

Win rate tells you how often you win. Profit Factor tells you whether wins outweigh losses in total. But Expectancy tells you something more direct: on average, how many dollars do you make or lose every time you place a trade?

A positive Expectancy means your strategy produces profit on average. A negative Expectancy means you are losing money with every trade, on average — no matter how good individual winners feel. This is the bottom line metric.

What is Expectancy? (definition + formula)

Expectancy combines your win rate, average win size, and average loss size into a single expected value. It answers the question: if I placed this trade infinitely many times, what would the average outcome be?

Notice that Expectancy uses four inputs — not just win rate. This is what makes it more complete than win rate alone. A 70% win rate with a terrible average win can still produce a negative Expectancy. A 40% win rate with strong average wins can produce an excellent one.

Expectancy is closely related to both Profit Factor and R-Multiple. Where Profit Factor measures the ratio of gross wins to gross losses, Expectancy gives you the per-trade dollar number in real terms — making it the most intuitive of the three.

Worked example: close but not quite profitable

Here is a scenario that looks good on the surface but falls apart on Expectancy:

Expectancy = (0.55 × $20) − (0.45 × $25) = $11.00 − $11.25 = −$0.25 per trade.

A 55% win rate with wins that are nearly as large as losses produces a negative Expectancy. You are losing a quarter dollar on every trade on average — and that is before fees. Add typical exchange fees and the real number is worse.

Now a positive example: W = 45%, avg win = $40, avg loss = $20. Expectancy = (0.45 × $40) − (0.55 × $20) = $18 − $11 = +$7 per trade. Lower win rate, but much better asymmetry. This is what "letting winners run" actually looks like in numbers.

What Expectancy should you aim for?

Expectancy is expressed in dollar terms, so the threshold depends on your average position size. A more useful benchmark is Expectancy as a percentage of average position size:

• Negative Expectancy — you are losing money per trade on average. Stop adding capital until this is resolved.
• $0 to +fees per trade — technically positive but fees erase the edge. Calculate after all transaction fees to see your true number.
• ≥1.5% of average position size — genuine positive edge that clears typical fees with margin to spare.
• Much higher than expected? — check your sample size. Fewer than 30 trades means the number is noise, not signal.

2 common mistakes that distort Expectancy

How Coinlio computes Expectancy for you

Coinlio calculates your Expectancy on the Insights tab using all your closed round-trip trades. A round-trip is one complete buy-to-sell cycle on the same coin.

Fees logged in each transaction are included in the win/loss amounts, so the Expectancy you see is your real after-fee number — not a theoretical pre-fee calculation.

• Expectancy cell in StatCardView — shows your current dollar expectancy with a green sublabel (positive edge) or red sublabel (negative edge).
• Auto-updates on every trade — as you add transactions, Expectancy recalculates immediately so you always have your live number.
• Sample size awareness — the card notes when you have fewer than 30 trades, flagging that the number is early-stage and may shift as more trades are recorded.

What to do after you know your Expectancy

Expectancy is a diagnostic. Once you know it, here are the levers to pull:

• Negative Expectancy with decent win rate? Your losses are too large relative to wins. Check your R-Multiple — you may be cutting winners early. See R-Multiple: Are You Cutting Winners Too Early?
• Positive Expectancy but low Profit Factor? You have fewer winners but they are big enough to carry the total. See Profit Factor: The Single Most Important Number in Your Trading Stats for context on the ratio side.
• Expectancy swings wildly month to month? Market regime may be affecting your edge. Track whether your strategy works across bull and bear conditions — not just when the market cooperates.

Open Coinlio → Insights tab → see your Expectancy per trade on your real portfolio. <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/coinlio-crypto-tracker/id6761177479">Download on the App Store</a>.<br><br><em>Educational content. Not financial advice.</em>