Some of the tools sold to prop candidates make expectancy harder to understand, not easier. I've used several of them during my own evaluations, and a few actively steered me wrong.
Dashboards that lead with win rate. A big green 68% at the top of the screen feels like good news. But if your average loser is twice your average winner, 68% loses money. When the headline number is win rate, you end up optimising for it, often by cutting winners early.
Profit target countdowns. A bar showing you're 62% of the way to the target makes it very tempting to size up near the end. That's exactly when many people fail.
Trade grading by outcome. Tools that mark a winning trade green and a losing one red, regardless of whether you followed your plan. A rule-breaking winner is still a problem.
What I actually use: a plain spreadsheet with R per trade, cumulative R, average win and loss in R, and expectancy per trade over the last 30 and last 100 trades. Nothing flashy. It shows me the only thing that tells me whether I'm likely to pass.
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Expectancy literacy for prop candidates: tools that hurt
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LondonScalper
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Shadow Trader
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Re: Expectancy literacy for prop candidates: tools that hurt
The win rate dashboard point is right, and there's a version of it that is even sneakier: the average R display that includes breakeven trades. If a third of your trades are moved to breakeven and scratched, they drag the average loss down and make the system look safer than it is.
I keep scratches as a separate category. In my last evaluation, 41 of 120 trades were scratches, and once I took them out, the real average loss was about 0.9R, not the 0.6R the tool showed.
On the profit target countdown, I'd go further. I cover it with a sticky note.
The only number I let myself see during the session is the distance to the daily loss limit, because that's the one that can end the account.
One thing I'd add to your spreadsheet: maximum consecutive losers over the last 100 trades. Expectancy tells you whether you'll pass eventually. The losing streak tells you whether you'll survive long enough to get there with the firm's daily rule.
Do you compute expectancy over 30 trades at all? I find it too noisy to act on, so I only use it as a warning light.
I keep scratches as a separate category. In my last evaluation, 41 of 120 trades were scratches, and once I took them out, the real average loss was about 0.9R, not the 0.6R the tool showed.
On the profit target countdown, I'd go further. I cover it with a sticky note.
The only number I let myself see during the session is the distance to the daily loss limit, because that's the one that can end the account.
One thing I'd add to your spreadsheet: maximum consecutive losers over the last 100 trades. Expectancy tells you whether you'll pass eventually. The losing streak tells you whether you'll survive long enough to get there with the firm's daily rule.
Do you compute expectancy over 30 trades at all? I find it too noisy to act on, so I only use it as a warning light.
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Shadow Trader
- Posts: 989
- Joined: Wed Sep 09, 2026 5:19 pm
Re: Expectancy literacy for prop candidates: tools that hurt
Coming back to the 30 versus 100 trade windows. I ran a quick test on my own record of about 400 trades: I took random 30 trade blocks and looked at how often expectancy came out negative, even though the full sample is positive.
It was roughly one block in four. So a negative 30 trade reading means very little on its own, and I've seen people abandon a working approach because of one.
What I do now is only act when both windows agree. If the last 30 and the last 100 are both below zero, I stop and review. If only the 30 is negative, I check plan adherence first, because in my case a bad 30 trade run is usually rule breaking rather than a broken edge.
The other tool I'd add to the list of ones that hurt: anything that shows profit in currency instead of R. Seeing a number in dollars during an evaluation makes me think about the payout instead of the trade.
Has anyone found a ready made tool that reports in R by default? Every one I've tried treats it as an afterthought.
It was roughly one block in four. So a negative 30 trade reading means very little on its own, and I've seen people abandon a working approach because of one.
What I do now is only act when both windows agree. If the last 30 and the last 100 are both below zero, I stop and review. If only the 30 is negative, I check plan adherence first, because in my case a bad 30 trade run is usually rule breaking rather than a broken edge.
The other tool I'd add to the list of ones that hurt: anything that shows profit in currency instead of R. Seeing a number in dollars during an evaluation makes me think about the payout instead of the trade.
Has anyone found a ready made tool that reports in R by default? Every one I've tried treats it as an afterthought.