Guide 1 · The unit of risk
R is the unit of risk: 1R is what you lose when the stop loss is hit, whatever the size of your account. Once you think in R, a 90% win rate stops looking good and a 57% one stops looking bad.
R is the unit of risk. If you buy at 100 with a stop loss at 98, then 1R = 2 - the distance between your entry and your stop. Everything that happens next is measured in that unit: the stop costs you exactly −1R, and a target 6 points away pays you +3R.
The useful part is that R does not care about your account. Two traders with the same signal, one with $200 and one with $200,000, will have different dollar results and the same result in R. That is what makes it possible to compare strategies, months and people.
For a long:
R = (close − entry) ÷ (entry − stop)
For a short the two sides swap: the stop is above the entry and the profit comes from the price falling.
Nothing else enters the formula. Not your leverage, not your account size, not how convinced you were. This is why a trader who writes down results in R is forced to be honest: a stop is a stop.
This is a closed signal, exactly as it was published on 8 October 2026 - a short on ZEC/USDT with 3x leverage:
| Level | Price | In R |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | 1,297.00 | - |
| Stop loss | 1,313.04 | −1.00R |
| Take profit 1 | 1,287.37 | +0.60R |
| Take profit 2 | 1,277.75 | +1.20R |
| Take profit 3 (closed here) | 1,268.12 | +1.80R |
The distance from the entry to the stop is 16.04, so that was 1R - about 1.24% of the price. The third target was 28.88 away: 28.88 ÷ 16.04 = +1.80R. Nobody had to know the account size to write that down.
Here is every closed signal the engine has produced, grouped by where it ended. The last column is the one that matters:
| Where it closed | Signals | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Take profit 1 | 65 | +0.60R | +39.0R |
| Take profit 2 | 32 | +1.20R | +38.4R |
| Take profit 3 | 18 | +1.80R | +32.4R |
| Take profit 5 | 2 | +3.00R | +6.0R |
| Stop loss hit | 86 | −1.00R | −86.0R |
| All closed signals | 203 | - | +29.80R |
Read that table again, because it contains the whole lesson: 86 losing trades, more than four out of ten, and the engine is still ahead - because a win is worth more than a loss. That is not a detail, it is the design.
Trade A closes 90 times out of 100 for a tiny average gain of +0.10R and loses −1R the other ten times:
| Signals | Each | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small wins | 90 | +0.10R | +9.0R |
| Losses | 10 | −1.00R | −10.0R |
| Total | 100 | - | −1.0R |
It wins nine times out of ten and it loses money. The win rate is not a score: it is one of two numbers, and on its own it tells you nothing. A strategy needs the win rate and what each win is worth.
Whenever you look at a track record - ours, or anyone else's - the win rate alone is not enough. Ask for these:
What this guide is not saying
A positive average in R over 203 trades is not a promise about the next 203. It says that on the sample measured, risking one unit per trade produced a small positive average - and it tells you the size of that edge so you can judge whether it is worth the risk. Leveraged trading can lose the whole amount you put in.
R tells you how to measure a trade. The next two guides tell you how to build it: what leverage really does to your money, and how to size the position so that a bad run stays a bad run and not the end of the account.
No, and this is the whole point. A percentage depends on your account and on your leverage; R depends only on the trade. If you risk 1% of a $1,000 account, 1R is 10 dollars. If you risk 1% of a $100,000 account, 1R is 1,000 dollars. The trade is identical: same stop, same targets, same result in R, very different money.
Then every R is worth less money, and nothing else changes. The win rate, the average R and the shape of the curve stay exactly the same - that is why R is the honest way to talk about a strategy. Our engine risks 0.5%, 1% or 2% of the account depending on the confidence of the setup, never more than 3%.
It risks the same in R: every signal carries its own stop, and 1R is the distance between the entry and that stop. What changes is the money: 0.5%, 1% or 2% of the account. Both things matter, and they are different questions: R measures the operation, the percentage measures your account.
Yes, and that is its main use. "I made 8% this month" says nothing without knowing how much was at risk: 8% from risking 20% per trade is a completely different (and much more fragile) month than 8% from risking 1%. In R, the two are directly comparable.
Because a track record that only contains winners is not a track record. Our archive keeps every closed signal - 86 of them ended on the stop loss - and the numbers in this guide are the sum of all 203. You can check them one by one on the results page.