Judge trades in R, not dollars
R-multiples strip out position size and reveal your real edge. Track average R over many trades — that number, not any single win, is your system. Pair with the expectancy calculator.
Thinking in R changes everything
An R-multiple is your result divided by what you risked. Risk $100, make $250 — that's +2.5R. Risk $100, lose $100 — that's −1R. The point of the unit is that it makes every trade comparable regardless of size, coin, or leverage.
Why it matters: a trader who wins 40% of the time sounds bad. But if the average winner is +2.5R and the average loser is −1R, the expectancy is 0.4 × 2.5 − 0.6 × 1 = +0.4R per trade. Over 100 trades risking 1% each, that compounds into serious growth — with a losing record.
The mistake is measuring R against what you made up as the risk instead of the real stop distance. If your stop was 5% away but you "mentally" risked 2%, your R-multiples are fiction. R only works when the denominator is the actual dollar loss at your actual stop.