Win rate
Win rate is the percentage of trades that close in profit: winners divided by total trades. Twelve winners in 30 trades is a 40% win rate.
Alone, it says almost nothing. A 90% win rate loses money if the tenth trade gives back more than the nine wins combined, and a 35% win rate can be strongly profitable with large winners. Win rate only acquires meaning next to the risk-reward ratio: the breakeven win rate is risk ÷ (risk + reward) — 50% at 1:1, 33.3% at 1:2.
Sample size matters as well. Twenty trades cannot establish a win rate, and streaks of five or more losses are unremarkable for a 40% system. The combined measure that predicts results is expectancy, tracked over a meaningful sample in a trading journal.
In a prop-firm challenge
Chasing a high win rate is a recognizable trap: cutting winners early and widening stops raises the percentage while degrading the math behind it. A 40% win rate at 1:2 nets about +0.2R per trade (0.4 × 2R − 0.6 × 1R), which at 1% risk per trade would reach a typical 8% phase target in around 40 trades if the edge holds. What usually ends evaluations is risk per trade and rule breaches, not a modest win percentage — see why traders fail challenges.