Your R-Multiple is the realised P&L of a trade divided by the loss you would have taken if your stop-loss had hit instead of the close. Two trades that both made $100 are NOT equal: a +1R trade (you risked $100, made $100) is mediocre. A +5R trade (you risked $20, made $100) is excellent. The R-Multiple normalises away position size.
Expectancy is the average R-Multiple per trade across many trades. It's THE single number that says whether your strategy makes money long-term, regardless of what size you're trading at. Positive expectancy = profitable strategy. Negative = mathematically impossible to win long-term.
EURUSD long entered at 1.0850, stop-loss at 1.0830, exited at 1.0890. Volume 1 lot, gross +€400, commission −€5.
Risked = |1.0850 − 1.0830| × pip-value = 20 pips × $10/pip = $200 (≈€185). Net P&L = €395.
Histogram shape — what to look for: - Long right tail, short left side — healthy distribution, your strategy works. Big winners running, losers controlled. - Roughly symmetric — your wins and losses are about the same size; you need a high win-rate to be profitable. Strategy is undersized in R. - Long left tail — stop-loss discipline is broken. You're not honouring your stops.
Expectancy verdict (the headline number): - Strong — your edge is real and you can scale carefully. - Workable — tradable but fragile. Small slippage / commission shifts erode it. - Breakeven — the strategy doesn't make money. You're trading for entertainment. - Negative — losing strategy. No amount of risk-management saves a negative-expectancy edge.
The Onyx-Engine assigns your edge to one of these bands; the cutoff thresholds are TradeOnyx-internal calibration.
Win-rate × Avg-win matters more than win-rate alone. A 70% win-rate with small winners and full-R losers can be marginal; a 35% win-rate with 3R winners and 1R losers is excellent. The card surfaces the combination, not the win-rate alone.
How to read the card — visual elements top to bottom:
1. Headline at the top: your expectancy in R + win-rate + sample size. Read this first; it's the single-number verdict on your strategy. 2. Five histogram bars, left-to-right by R-magnitude: Severe Loss · Typical Loss · Breakeven · Modest Win · Big Win. Bars are normalised to the largest bucket — relative shape is the read, not absolute counts. 3. Four KPI tiles: Expectancy (the headline number), Win Rate, Average Win, Average Loss. Tile colour: green = healthy, red = warning. 4. Footer note: trades excluded because no stop-loss was set. If this number is large, your discipline of setting SL on entry is the bottleneck.
What to do with each diagnosis: - Negative expectancy → stop adding new trades to this strategy. Re-evaluate the entry rules, the SL placement, or the target. Don't size up. - Severe-loss bucket has any trades → audit those trades individually. Did you ignore the SL? Was there a gap? Was the SL too tight given symbol volatility? - Avg win < avg loss with high win-rate → classic 'pick up pennies, get hit by the truck' pattern. Move targets further out, or accept lower win-rate with bigger R. - Many trades excluded (no SL) → set stops on entry. Without an SL the R-Multiple is undefined and the rest of the engine can't help you.
The card is Free tier — every trader sees it from trade #11 onwards (the engine waits until 10 R-computable trades to avoid noisy point-estimates). Pro and Pro-Plus add the deeper detectors that explain WHY the expectancy is what it is.