Win rate is the percentage of a trader’s closed trades that end in profit, calculated as winning trades divided by total trades. A trader with 45 winners across 120 trades has a 37.5% win rate.
Win rate is the most quoted and most misused statistic in trading, because it says nothing about profitability on its own. What matters is the pair: win rate and average win relative to average loss. A 35% win rate is excellent if winners average three times the losers; a 75% win rate loses money if occasional losses are huge. The breakeven win rate for any risk-reward ratio is risk ÷ (risk + reward), before costs.
Win rate is also the statistic most distorted by small samples (ten trades tell you almost nothing) and the easiest to inflate with habits that hurt overall results, like cutting winners early or letting losers run.
45 winners in 120 trades: 45 ÷ 120 = 0.375 → 37.5%. At 1:2 risk-reward the breakeven win rate is 1 ÷ (1 + 2) ≈ 33.3%, so 37.5% is profitable before costs.