Net P&L
What your trades made after fees: what the winners made minus what the losers lost.
Trading glossary
Trading terms,
Trading terms,
in plain words.
55 words traders use, each in a sentence or two. The numbers are worked out the way Journalcade works them out.
ExpectancyWhat you make on an average trade, once the wins and losses net out.Calculator →Profit factorWhat your winners made divided by what your losers lost. Above 1, you made money.Calculator →R-multipleA trade’s result measured against what it risked. 1R is what you stood to lose at your stop.Calculator →Win rateThe share of your trades that made money.Calculator →Max drawdownThe biggest fall of your running P&L from a high to a later low.Calculator →MAE and MFEMaximum adverse excursion: the furthest a trade went against you while you were in it.Calculator →Revenge tradingJumping back in right after a loss to win the money back.How to spot it →TiltTrading on emotion after a loss or a streak: bigger, faster and looser than your plan.How to spot it →
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Your results
Gross P&L
Your P&L before commissions and fees. Net P&L is what you keep.
Win rate
The share of your trades that made money.
Read more →Break-even win rate
The win rate at which you make nothing. Above it, your wins pay for your losses.
Read more →Average win and loss
What a typical winner makes and a typical loser loses. With your win rate, they decide whether you make money.
Read more →Profit factor
What your winners made divided by what your losers lost. Above 1, you made money.
Read more →Expectancy
What you make on an average trade, once the wins and losses net out.
Read more →R-multiple (R)
A trade’s result measured against what it risked. 1R is what you stood to lose at your stop.
Read more →Average R
Your R-multiples averaged over the trades with a stop: your edge in units of risk.
Read more →Risk/reward ratio
How far your target is compared to your stop. A 2:1 trade aims to make twice what it risks.
Calculator →Equity curve
Your running P&L, trade by trade. Its dips are your drawdowns.
Read more →Max drawdown
The biggest fall of your running P&L from a high to a later low.
Read more →Risk and size
Risk per trade
What you lose on a trade if it hits your stop. Keeping it the same size makes your results comparable.
Calculator →Position size
How many contracts, shares, lots or coins you trade. Your stop and your risk per trade decide it.
Calculator →Stop loss
The price where you get out if the trade goes against you. It sets your 1R.
Read more →Daily loss limit
The most you let yourself lose in a day before you stop trading. Prop firms set one too.
Drawdown recovery
The gain it takes to get back to even after a loss. A 50% loss needs a 100% gain.
Calculator →Scaling in and out
Adding to a position, or taking it off, in parts instead of all at once.
Cool-down
A planned break from trading after a loss or a bad streak, so the next decision is a calm one.
In Journalcade →Trade quality
MAE (Max Heat)
Maximum adverse excursion: the furthest a trade went against you while you were in it.
Read more →MFE (Max Run)
Maximum favourable excursion: the most open profit a trade showed while you were in it.
Read more →Full run
How far price went your way before it would have hit your stop, even after you got out.
Read more →Left on the table
The part of the full run you didn’t take: the full run minus what you made, in R.
Read more →Hold time
How long you were in a trade. Holding losers longer than winners is a common leak.
Setup
A pattern you trade again and again, with the same rules each time.
Playbook
Your list of setups, each with its own checklist.
A, B and C trades
A grade for how good the setup was. The better the grade, the more you can plan to risk.
Slippage
The difference between the price you wanted and the price you got.
Commissions and fees
What your broker and the exchange charge for each trade: the gap between gross and net P&L.
Habits and mindset
Tilt
Trading on emotion after a loss or a streak: bigger, faster and looser than your plan.
Read more →Revenge trading
Jumping back in right after a loss to win the money back.
Read more →Overtrading
Taking more trades than your plan calls for, often out of boredom or to win back a loss.
Check your trades →Rapid-fire trading
Several trades in a few minutes. The journal flags the third trade opened inside 10 minutes.
Check your trades →Impulsive entry
Getting back in less than a minute after your last exit, before a new setup could form.
Check your trades →Holding a loser
Keeping a losing trade open, hoping it comes back. The journal flags a loser held more than twice as long as your average winner.
Check your trades →FOMO
Fear of missing out: chasing a move that has already gone, outside your plan.
Discipline score
The share of your trades that broke no rule of your plan.
Trading plan
Your written rules: what you trade, how much you risk, and when you stop for the day.
Trading journal
A record of every trade: why you took it, how it went and what you learned.
Guide →Prop firms
Evaluation (challenge)
A prop firm’s test: reach a profit target without breaking its loss rules, and you get a funded account.
Calculator →Funded account
An account a prop firm lets you trade once you pass, paying you a share of the profit.
In Journalcade →Profit target
The profit an evaluation asks for before you pass.
Trailing drawdown
A loss limit that moves up as your account makes new highs. Some firms trail it during the day, others at the close.
End-of-day drawdown
A trailing drawdown that moves only at the close, so open profit during the day doesn’t raise it.
Static drawdown
A loss limit that stays at the same level however much you make.
Consistency rule
A rule that no single day can be too big a share of your profit.
Payout
Money a prop firm pays you from a funded account’s profit, on the firm’s schedule and rules.
Buffer
Profit above the drawdown line, so one bad day can’t end a funded account.
In Journalcade →Contracts and markets
Futures contract
An agreement to buy or sell something later at a price set today. Traders use them for indexes, oil, gold and more.
Calculator →Micro contract
A smaller futures contract, a tenth of the full size: MNQ is a tenth of NQ.
Point value
What a one-point move is worth on one contract: $20 on NQ, $2 on MNQ.
Calculator →Tick
The smallest step a price can move. On NQ it’s 0.25 points.
Tick value
What one tick is worth on one contract: $5 on NQ.
Calculator →Pip
The usual small step of a currency price: 0.0001 on most pairs, 0.01 on yen pairs.
Lot
The unit forex is traded in. A standard lot is 100,000 units of the currency.
Questions
Quick answers.
Where do the formulas come from?+
From Journalcade itself: they are the same lines its “How is this calculated?” buttons show next to the numbers in the app.
Which numbers matter most?+
Expectancy and your average R tell you whether you make money over many trades. Win rate alone doesn’t: a 40% win rate can pay well, and 70% can lose.
Is this financial advice?+
No. It explains words and arithmetic. What you trade is up to you.
Can I see these numbers for my own trades?+
Yes. Drop your broker’s export on the free trade audit, or import it into Journalcade, which works them out on every trade.
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