R-Multiple & Expectancy Calculator
R normalises every trade to the risk you took on it: a +2R win made twice what you risked, a −1R loss lost exactly your planned risk. Thinking in R makes trades comparable across account sizes and instruments — and it leads to the one number that says whether a system makes money over many trades: expectancy, the average R you earn per trade.
- • 1R = your initial risk, |entry − stop|.
- • Trade result in R = (exit − entry) ÷ (entry − stop) — signed, so it works for longs and shorts.
- • Expectancy = win rate × average win − (1 − win rate) × average loss, in R.
Worked example: a 45% win rate with a 2R average win and a 1R average loss gives 0.45 × 2 − 0.55 × 1 = +0.35R per trade — a genuine edge, before costs.
Expectancy is before costs and slippage, which eat into every R. A positive expectancy still needs enough trades to show up through variance. Educational tool, not advice.
A free, interactive calculator for any blog, newsletter or forum — same numbers as here, and it links back.
<iframe src="https://stratsemble.com/embed/tools/r-multiple-calculator" width="460" height="450" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" title="R-multiple calculator — Stratsemble"></iframe>A calculator shows what a rule should do on paper. A backtest is how you find the rare few that actually beat simply buying and holding — costs on, losses shown, no look-ahead — so when you build one that survives, you'll know it isn't a fake edge, and can prove it forward before you risk real money. It won't tell you you'll win — nothing honest can.