The honest math behind a forex signal win rate
"90% win rate" is the most common claim in the forex signal industry. It's also the most meaningless. A 90% win rate with no context tells you nothing about whether the strategy actually makes money — let alone whether the number is real.
What a win rate has to break down into
A real signal service publishes three numbers, not one:
- TP% — the percentage of trades that reached a published take-profit level
- BE% — the percentage that exited at breakeven or a small protective profit
- SL% — the percentage that hit the stop loss (real losses)
The "headline win rate" is typically (TP% + BE%) / total. Without the breakdown, you can't tell if a 90% rate is 80% real take-profits and 10% breakevens (excellent), or 30% take-profits and 60% breakevens (mediocre, with loss-aversion bias hiding mediocrity).
Why the breakdown matters more than the headline
Two services both claim 80% win rate:
Service A: 60% TP / 20% BE / 20% SL. Average TP yields +18 pips. Average SL costs -10 pips.
Service B: 30% TP / 50% BE / 20% SL. Average TP yields +18 pips. Average BE yields +3 pips. Average SL costs -10 pips.
Same headline win rate. Service A delivers roughly +60 pips per 100 trades after fees. Service B delivers roughly +29 pips. The difference in real performance is enormous, but the headline number hides it.
What we publish on TeachTrades
Our success rate is always shown with the underlying TP/BE/SL split underneath. The breakdown updates in real time as signals close. You can verify the math at any moment by counting outcomes on the live results page.
We also publish a profit factor — the ratio of total winning pips to total losing pips. A profit factor above 2 is good. Above 3 is excellent. Below 1 is a losing strategy regardless of win rate.
Questions to ask any signal service
- What percentage of your "wins" are full take-profits vs breakeven exits?
- What's your profit factor over the last 90 days?
- Can I see every single closed trade with timestamps?
- Are breakeven exits computed on the bot side, or do subscribers need to manually move their stop?
If they can't answer any of these, you're looking at an inflated number, not a real strategy.