R, risk per trade and drawdown in plain wordsBeginner

How position size, R-multiples and drawdown fit together.

Simplified illustration, not real market data.

Think in R

R is what you risk on a trade. If you risk 100 and make 250, that is +2.5R. Thinking in R lets you compare strategies, markets and account sizes fairly.

Risk per trade

WickCheck results assume 1% of the account per trade. At 1%, ten losses in a row cost about 10%. At 5% per trade the same streak costs about 40%, and streaks of ten happen to almost every strategy eventually.

Drawdown is the real test

Look at the max drawdown before the return. Ask whether you, or your prop firm rules, could live through it. A slightly lower return with half the drawdown is usually the better strategy to trade.

Try it on your own strategy

Write your rules in plain words and test them on real data in seconds.

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More lessons

Why most strategies need a human behind the screenWhat a backtest can and cannot tell you about discretionary trading, and how to use both.Trading sessions and killzones: times, what happens in each, and how to test themAsian, London and New York sessions and the ICT killzones, with exact times in New York and London time, daylight saving notes and test rules.What a backtest is, and what it is notThe basics in five minutes: rules, data, costs and the limits of testing the past.How costs quietly eat small edgesSpread, commission and slippage explained, and why tight stops make them worse.Why 30 trades prove nothingHow luck hides in small samples and how many trades you actually need.When a great result is just luck: overfittingHow to tell a real edge from a curve-fitted one.How to read your WickCheck resultsWhat each number means and the order to look at them in.

Education only, not financial advice. Definitions vary between teachers; these are ours, written for clarity.