Reading Your Trading Journal: Win Rate, Profit Factor & Drawdown
Your closed trades tell a story. Learn how to read an equity curve, win rate, profit factor, and max drawdown — and what each metric actually says about your edge.
A journal isn't a diary — it's the dataset your future decisions run on. But the metrics only help if you read them for what they actually measure. Here's the honest version of each number MirrorChain's journal computes from your closed trades.
Win rate: the most overrated number
Win rate is how often you're right; it says nothing about how much being right pays. A 40% win rate with 3R winners beats a 70% win rate with tiny wins and full-size losses. Read win rate only next to average win / average loss — together they're your expectancy; alone, win rate is a comfort metric.
Profit factor: the one to watch
Profit factor is gross profit divided by gross loss. Below 1.0 you're paying the market; 1.0–1.3 is fragile — spread and slippage own you; 1.5+ across a meaningful sample is a real edge. It compresses direction, sizing and exits into one ratio, which makes it the best single health check a journal can give you.
Max drawdown: your survival metric
Max drawdown is the deepest peak-to-trough dip in your equity curve — the worst stretch you'd have had to sit through. It sets your real risk budget: on a prop account, a personal max drawdown near the firm's limit means the strategy doesn't fit the account, however good the average month looks. Pair it with the daily loss limits that keep any single day from writing a new one.
The equity curve and the calendar
Shape beats slope: a choppy curve grinding upward is a robust edge; a smooth curve with one cliff is a strategy that works until it doesn't. The month-by-month P&L calendar catches patterns that averages hide — the Friday bleed, the news-day losses, the one week each month that erases two.
Because MirrorChain journals every account automatically, the same trade's results across brokers sit side by side — which is how you find out one broker's fills quietly cost you 0.2R per trade. When you're ready to go deeper, tag your strategies and read these same metrics per setup.