Trading Instruments · Educational Tools
Calculators, grounded in the books.
Three tools built from real trading-book fundamentals. Not investment advice; every number here is yours to set.
Strategy expectancy comparison
Four real strategy families drawn from the traders profiled on this site, each with an illustrative win-rate and reward:risk starting point — not a claim about any real track record. Adjust the sliders to see how expectancy responds.
Expectancy per trade, in R-multiples
Positive means the strategy makes money on average per trade at these inputs; taller bar is better.
| Family | Win rate | Reward:risk | Expectancy (R) |
|---|
Individual traders
Each of the 15 strategy traders, with an illustrative win-rate and reward:risk reviewed by hand before publishing — pick one to see a single simulated sequence of 30 trades at those odds.
Trend-following
Alexander Elder
Elder's systematic approach with strict risk management (2% Rule, 6% Rule) and multi-indicator confirmation (Triple Screen, Elder-Ray) suggests a balanced win-rate with moderate reward:risk, aiming for consistency over high-frequency wins or extreme asymmetric payoffs.
Jesse Livermore
The style emphasizes decisive action on high-conviction tape-reading setups, implying fewer but higher-quality trades with asymmetric payoffs.
Stan Weinstein
Weinstein's focus on chart patterns and relative strength suggests a balanced approach with moderate win rates and reward:risk, as his methods aim to capture trends early but require confirmation from price action.
Michael Covel
Trend following with strict risk management typically involves a lower win rate due to frequent small losses, but higher reward:risk ratios from riding large trends when they occur.
Curtis Faith
Trend-following systems typically have lower win rates but higher reward:risk ratios due to letting winners run while cutting losses quickly.
William O'Neil
O'Neil's approach combines technical breakdowns (e.g., head-and-shoulders) and deteriorating fundamentals, suggesting a moderate win-rate with a higher reward:risk as short positions capitalize on accelerated downtrends after confirmation.
Market Wizards
Trend following strategies typically have lower win rates but higher reward-to-risk ratios due to letting winners run and cutting losses quickly.
Momentum / breakout
Mark Minervini
Momentum trading with breakouts and pullbacks typically involves a balanced win rate with higher reward-to-risk ratios to capitalize on strong trends while managing losses through time stops and mark-to-market discipline.
Mark Minervini
Momentum trading with strict risk management suggests a balanced win-rate with a higher reward:risk to capitalize on strong trends while cutting losses quickly.
Mark Minervini
Minervini's focus on high-probability setups like VCP and Stage 2 Uptrends suggests a balanced win-rate with a moderate reward:risk, as his method combines selective entry points with letting winners ride momentum.
Mark Boucher
The combination of quantitative analysis, relative strength, and volatility tools suggests a balanced approach that prioritizes optimized risk/reward ratios, leading to a moderate win rate with a moderately favorable reward-to-risk.
Super Performance
Cyclical trading focuses on timing entries and exits within stock-price cycles, suggesting a balanced win-rate with moderate reward:risk to capture cyclical moves while managing emotional selling risks.
Chart pattern / statistical
Thomas Bulkowski
Bulkowski's focus on statistically-measured chart patterns suggests a moderate win-rate with a slightly favorable reward-to-risk ratio, as patterns provide defined entry/exit points but require room for stop-losses due to occasional false breakouts.
Victor Niederhoffer
The eclectic, probability-driven approach with emphasis on patterns and expected value suggests a balanced win-rate and moderate reward:risk, favoring statistical edges over extreme asymmetry.
Day-trading / tape-reading
Mike Bellafiore
The focus on high-probability setups and tape reading suggests a moderate win rate with a slightly favorable reward:risk ratio, as the strategy aims to capitalize on statistically measured edges while managing risk.
Psychology — no strategy numbers apply
Two traders profiled on this site aren't teaching a trading strategy at all — they're explaining why traders sabotage whichever strategy they use. No win-rate or reward:risk applies to their work, so they're never in the chart above.
Daniel Kahneman
Loss aversion & prospect theory — why a loss hurts roughly twice as much as an equivalent gain feels good, and how that bias drives traders to hold losers too long and sell winners too early.
Read the full profile →Jared Tendler
The mental game of trading — tilt, accumulated emotion, and the perfectionism trap that makes traders abandon a working plan under stress.
Read the full profile →