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R-Multiples: Measuring Every Trade in Units of Risk

A $200 profit can be a great trade or a poor one. Measure it against the risk you took, in R, and you'll know which.

Written By

Karolina Hansen

Updated 26/10/2026 · 5 min read

ForexGold

Key Takeaways

1R is the amount you planned to lose if the stop got hit, set by the distance from your entry to your stop.
A trade's R-multiple is its result divided by that starting risk.
With R you can compare a small trade and a big one fairly, even across markets or after your balance has changed.
Expectancy in R = (win rate × average win in R) − (loss rate × average loss in R).
A trade with no stop has no R, because you never defined its risk.

Most traders judge a trade by how much money it made or lost. Fair enough. But that skips the more useful question. How much did this trade make compared with what it put at risk? An R-multiple answers that. It puts every trade in the same unit, so your 0.05-lot Tuesday trade and your 0.50-lot Thursday trade can be judged on one scale.

What R Means

R stands for risk. 1R is the money you planned to lose if your stop loss was hit, and it's fixed the moment you place the stop. Take the distance from entry to stop and multiply it by your position size. Work in dollars first. R is simply the dollar result divided by the dollar risk.

Find the dollar risk

A gold buy at 4,000 with a stop at 3,990, at $10 per point. The stop is 10 points away, so you risk 10 × $10 = $100. That $100 is 1R.

Find the dollar result

You close at 4,025. That's 25 points × $10 = +$250.

Divide

$250 ÷ $100 = +2.5R. A close at 3,995 would be −$50 ÷ $100 = −0.5R.

R-multiple = result of the trade ÷ initial risk. Use the original stop, not wherever you moved it later. If you use the moved stop, you're changing the measure after you already know the result.

Why R Beats Money for Comparing Trades

A money result mixes up how good the trade was with how big you made it. Two trades can look similar in dollars and be nothing alike in quality.

Trade	Risked → Made	R-multiple
Trade A	$400 → +$200	200 ÷ 400 = +0.5R
Trade B	$25 → +$100	100 ÷ 25 = +4R

Dollars made for every $1 risked (worked example)

Trade A: made $200, risked $400+$0.50 per $1 (+0.5R)

Trade B: made $100, risked $25+$4.00 per $1 (+4R)

Worked example. Trade A made more dollars. Trade B made far more for each dollar it put at risk.

Fair comparison

A 0.01-lot trade and a 1-lot trade go on the same scale.

Survives account changes

R still means the same thing after your balance has grown or shrunk.

Works across markets

Gold, forex and indices all come down to the same unit.

Expectancy in R

Expectancy is what you made on average per trade, measured in R. It tells you whether a run of trades, taken together, has been paying you for the risk.

Expectancy (R) = (win rate × average win in R) − (loss rate × average loss in R).

Here's an illustrative example. Ten trades, each risking $50 (so 1R = $50). Five won and five lost, so a 50% win rate. The wins add up to $475, an average of $95 (1.9R). The losses add up to $225, an average of $45 (0.9R). Expectancy = (0.5 × $95) − (0.5 × $45) = $47.50 − $22.50 = +$25 per trade. Divide by the $50 risk and you get +0.5R per trade.

Illustrative example: ten trades, each risking $50

Trade 1+$100 (+2R)

Trade 2−$50 (−1R)

Trade 3+$75 (+1.5R)

Trade 4−$50 (−1R)

Trade 5−$50 (−1R)

Trade 6+$150 (+3R)

Trade 7−$25 (−0.5R)

Trade 8+$50 (+1R)

Trade 9−$50 (−1R)

Trade 10+$100 (+2R)

Illustrative journal data. Total +$250 over 10 trades = +$25 average (+0.5R). No loss goes past $50, because every stop was left where it was.

A 50% win rate can be fine or it can be terrible. Your average win and average loss in R decide which.

Trades With No R

R needs a stop. Open a trade without one and there's no planned risk to divide by, so there's no R-multiple. Look at these trades separately, in dollars. That's often where the losses bigger than your normal risk are hiding.

R only works if the stop was there at entry. Trades opened without a stop have no R, and neither do trades where your broker doesn't report the stop you entered with. Judge those in dollars.

Healthy signs in your R data

Most losses sit close to −1R
Some winners reach +2R or more
A positive average R over a decent number of trades

Warning signs

Losses of −2R, −3R or worse (stops moved or missing)
Lots of trades with no R at all
Winners mostly below +1R while losses sit at −1R

Reading Your Own R-Multiples

Check your average R. Is it above zero over your last 20 or more trades?
Look at the spread. Do your losses stop near −1R, or are there a few huge ones?
Count the trades with no R. Every one of them is a trade where you never decided what you'd lose.
Put your average win in R next to your average loss in R, and read them with your win rate.

Small samples lie. Ten trades can show a positive average R by luck alone, so treat it as something to keep an eye on rather than proof.

Your TradersGrowth Journal shows this in the R-Multiple card. You'll see each trade's result in R, your average R, how the results are spread and which trades had no stop (no R).

See every trade measured against what you risked on it.

Open Your Journal

Frequently Asked Questions

There's no single good number for one trade. Look at the average over many trades, together with your win rate. A low win rate can work if the winners are large in R. A high win rate can get by with smaller ones.

Use the original stop. That was the risk you signed up for when you entered. If you use a stop you moved later, you're changing the measure after you know how it ended.

Yes. Spread, commission and swap all come off the result, so they come off the R-multiple too. Put them in and you'll get a more honest number.

Educational content only, not financial advice. Examples are illustrative arithmetic and exclude costs. Trading involves risk, and past performance does not guarantee future results.

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