[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":836},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-moving-average":3,"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-moving-average-related":230},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"category":215,"date":216,"description":217,"draft":218,"extension":219,"meta":220,"navigation":218,"path":221,"related":222,"seo":226,"stem":227,"term":228,"updated":216,"__hash__":229},"glossary\u002F5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-moving-average.md","What Is a Moving Average? SMA vs EMA, Explained",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":207},"minimark",[9,13,18,21,32,35,38,41,45,54,57,61,87,98,101,105,108,157,161,199],[10,11,12],"p",{},"A moving average is the average price of an instrument over a fixed number of recent periods, recalculated on every new bar. It converts a jagged price series into a single line that follows the market with a delay. That delay is not a defect to be tuned away; it is what the calculation is.",[14,15,17],"h2",{"id":16},"how-it-works","How it works",[10,19,20],{},"The two common forms differ only in how they weight the past.",[22,23,28],"pre",{"className":24,"code":26,"language":27},[25],"language-text","SMA(n) = (P1 + P2 + ... + Pn) \u002F n\n\nEMA(n): k = 2 \u002F (n + 1)\n        EMA_today = (Price_today × k) + (EMA_yesterday × (1 − k))\n","text",[29,30,26],"code",{"__ignoreMap":31},"",[10,33,34],{},"The simple moving average weights every period equally and drops the oldest bar completely when a new one arrives. This has a consequence people rarely account for: an SMA can turn because of a bar that left the window, not because of anything that just happened.",[10,36,37],{},"The exponential moving average weights recent prices more heavily and never fully discards old data — each past bar's influence decays geometrically. It responds sooner to a change in direction, and it produces more false turns for the same reason.",[10,39,40],{},"Lag is measurable. For a price series moving in a straight line, an SMA of n periods sits roughly (n−1)\u002F2 periods behind. A 200-period average of daily bars is, by construction, describing where price was about a hundred days ago. Shortening the period reduces the lag and increases the number of times the line reverses on noise. There is no setting that removes both.",[14,42,44],{"id":43},"why-it-matters","Why it matters",[10,46,47,48,53],{},"Every rule built on a moving average inherits the lag. You enter after the move has started and exit after it has ended, and you pay the ",[49,50,52],"a",{"href":51},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-spread","spread",", the commission and any slippage on each of those transactions. In a trending market that cost is small against the move captured. In a range it is the whole result: the line crosses back and forth, each cross is a paid transaction, and the account bleeds without a single dramatic loss.",[10,55,56],{},"This is why a moving average is a component, not a strategy. It says something about the recent average price. It says nothing about position size, stop placement, or whether the current market is the kind the rule works in.",[14,58,60],{"id":59},"what-the-data-shows","What the data shows",[10,62,63,64,68,69,72,73,77,78,81,82,86],{},"Across the public accounts on ShowMyTrades with trading history (August 2026), the median account has closed ",[65,66,67],"strong",{},"171 trades",", the median trade lasts ",[65,70,71],{},"2.4 hours",", and the median ",[49,74,76],{"href":75},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-profit-factor","profit factor"," is ",[65,79,80],{},"1.28",". A crossing rule read on an intraday timeframe fits that shape closely: frequent entries, short holds, and a margin over break-even thin enough for ",[49,83,85],{"href":84},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-cost-percentage","transaction cost"," to decide the outcome.",[10,88,89,90,93,94,97],{},"Turnover is therefore the figure to hold against any crossover system. Those accounts have traded ",[65,91,92],{},"1,724,575 lots",", and the commission billed on that volume comes to ",[65,95,96],{},"$4,782,670",". A signal rule that fires more often does not merely need to be right more often — it needs to be right by enough to cover a fee levied on every crossing.",[10,99,100],{},"One honest limit: ShowMyTrades does not infer which indicator or expert advisor produced a trade, so none of these figures can be attributed to moving-average systems specifically. They describe the whole published population, which is the only thing they can honestly describe.",[14,102,104],{"id":103},"where-you-see-it-on-showmytrades","Where you see it on ShowMyTrades",[10,106,107],{},"The charts viewer plots equity, growth, profit and drawdown — the account, not the price chart. There are no indicator overlays, because the platform's job is to show what a strategy did, not to help design one.",[10,109,110,111,117,118,121,122,125,126,129,130,133,134,125,137,129,140,143,144,147,148,151,152,156],{},"What you can do is measure an MA-based system's real behaviour. In ",[49,112,114],{"href":113},"\u002Fguides\u002Fcustom-analysis-and-filter-presets",[65,115,116],{},"Custom Analysis",", filter by ",[65,119,120],{},"Magic Numbers"," to isolate a single expert advisor on a shared account, then narrow with ",[65,123,124],{},"Trade Duration (seconds)",", ",[65,127,128],{},"Days of Week"," and ",[65,131,132],{},"Trading Hours (Server Time)"," to see when the rule actually fires. In Advanced Statistics, ",[65,135,136],{},"Total Trades",[65,138,139],{},"Avg. Trade Length",[65,141,142],{},"Total Commissions"," together tell you whether the turnover is being paid for. The ",[65,145,146],{},"Breakdown Statistics"," panel, on its ",[65,149,150],{},"By Symbol"," tab, shows whether the result came from one instrument that happened to trend — which for any ",[49,153,155],{"href":154},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-trend-following","trend following"," rule is the question that matters.",[14,158,160],{"id":159},"common-misunderstandings","Common misunderstandings",[162,163,164,176,182,188],"ul",{},[165,166,167,170,171,175],"li",{},[65,168,169],{},"\"The crossover is the system.\""," A crossover is an entry trigger. Without sizing, an exit and a cost assumption it is not a strategy, and the ",[49,172,174],{"href":173},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-backtesting","backtest"," of it is measuring the market, not the method.",[165,177,178,181],{},[65,179,180],{},"\"The 200-day average is significant because everyone watches it.\""," Popularity produces attention, not edge. Nothing in our data supports or refutes any specific period, and no honest source can offer you one.",[165,183,184,187],{},[65,185,186],{},"\"EMA is better because it reacts faster.\""," Faster reaction means earlier entries and more false ones. The choice is a trade-off, not an upgrade.",[165,189,190,193,194,198],{},[65,191,192],{},"\"I optimised the period and 34 worked best.\""," Selecting a period because it performed best on history you have already seen is ",[49,195,197],{"href":196},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-curve-fitting","curve fitting",", whatever the number turns out to be.",[10,200,201,202,206],{},"For the metrics that tell you whether any rule-based system is actually earning its costs, see ",[49,203,205],{"href":204},"\u002Fguides\u002Ftracking-trading-performance","tracking your trading performance",".",{"title":31,"searchDepth":208,"depth":208,"links":209},2,[210,211,212,213,214],{"id":16,"depth":208,"text":17},{"id":43,"depth":208,"text":44},{"id":59,"depth":208,"text":60},{"id":103,"depth":208,"text":104},{"id":159,"depth":208,"text":160},"Strategy","2026-08-19T00:00:00.000Z","A moving average is the mean price over the last N periods, recalculated each bar. What SMA and EMA compute, and why lag is the defining property, not a flaw.",true,"md",{},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-moving-average",[223,224,225],"what-is-trend-following","what-is-backtesting","what-is-curve-fitting",{"title":5,"description":217},"5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-moving-average","Moving Average","fSTZnlt5snHSK_X5ZaAwnsqskFiY3lqkUulG-uElNkA",[231,457,655],{"id":232,"title":233,"body":234,"category":215,"date":216,"description":447,"draft":448,"extension":219,"meta":449,"navigation":218,"path":173,"related":450,"seo":453,"stem":454,"term":455,"updated":216,"__hash__":456},"glossary\u002F5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-backtesting.md","What Is Backtesting? Definition, Limits and Live Data",{"type":7,"value":235,"toc":440},[236,239,241,244,250,253,281,287,289,292,295,297,308,328,338,345,351,353,361,389,400,402,433],[10,237,238],{},"Backtesting is the simulation of a trading strategy against historical price data to estimate how it would have performed. It produces an equity curve, a profit factor and a drawdown figure without a single order ever reaching a broker. Those outputs are a hypothesis about the strategy, not a record of it.",[14,240,17],{"id":16},[10,242,243],{},"The tester replays historical bars or ticks, applies the strategy's entry and exit rules to each one, and records a simulated fill. Everything that separates the simulation from reality lives in the cost and fill model:",[22,245,248],{"className":246,"code":247,"language":27},[25],"Net result per trade = Gross P&L − spread − commission − swap − slippage\n\nSpread cost  = spread (in price) × contract size × lots\nSwap         = swap rate × lots × nights held\n",[29,249,247],{"__ignoreMap":31},[10,251,252],{},"Three settings decide how honest the output is:",[162,254,255,261,270],{},[165,256,257,260],{},[65,258,259],{},"Modelling quality."," MT4 and MT5 report it as a percentage. \"Every tick\" interpolates from 1-minute bars unless you supply real tick data; \"control points\" and \"open prices only\" are approximations that flatter intrabar strategies badly.",[165,262,263,266,267,269],{},[65,264,265],{},"Spread assumption."," Most testers default to a fixed spread. Live spread widens at the rollover, on news and at the session open — exactly the moments many systems trade. A ",[49,268,52],{"href":51}," modelled at 0.8 pips and paid at 4.0 pips is a different strategy.",[165,271,272,275,276,280],{},[65,273,274],{},"Slippage and fill logic."," The tester assumes your order is filled at the requested price. ",[49,277,279],{"href":278},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-slippage","Slippage",", rejected orders, requotes and partial fills do not exist in it.",[10,282,283,284,286],{},"There is a fourth problem the software does not report: the parameter set itself survived a search. If you ran 400 variants and kept the best one, the result you are reading was selected by hindsight. That is ",[49,285,197],{"href":196},", and it is the single largest gap between tested and live performance.",[14,288,44],{"id":43},[10,290,291],{},"A backtest is the cheapest way to reject a bad idea and the most expensive way to confirm a good one. It can establish that a rule set is mechanically coherent, that it survives a rough cost assumption, and that its drawdown profile is something you could sit through. It cannot establish that the edge exists, because every input it uses is a reconstruction and every parameter it uses was chosen after the data was seen.",[10,293,294],{},"Anyone deciding where to put money should treat a backtest as a screening tool with a veto, never as evidence.",[14,296,60],{"id":59},[10,298,299,300,303,304,307],{},"ShowMyTrades publishes ",[65,301,302],{},"10,000+ accounts"," as public pages, resting on ",[65,305,306],{},"15,436,464 synchronised trades"," (August 2026). Not one of them is simulated: every trade in that count was filled by a broker and read back from it.",[10,309,310,311,314,315,77,317,319,320,77,324,327],{},"That published population is overwhelmingly automated — median autotrading share ",[65,312,313],{},"99%",", with 53.9% of accounts running above 90% automation and 42.2% below 10%. The automated portion consists, in the main, of strategies that were backtested before they were funded. Across the whole published set the median ",[49,316,76],{"href":75},[65,318,80],{}," and the median ",[49,321,323],{"href":322},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-the-sharpe-ratio","Sharpe ratio",[65,325,326],{},"0.05",". Those are the figures the tester reports were competing against.",[10,329,330,331,333,334,337],{},"Costs are the line a simulation most often understates, and here they are billed rather than assumed: ",[65,332,96],{}," charged in commission and ",[65,335,336],{},"$862,547"," in swap, with 86.3% of the accounts that carry any swap paying it net negative. A backtest set to zero swap on a strategy that holds positions overnight is not slightly optimistic; it is missing a recurring charge.",[10,339,340],{},[341,342],"img",{"alt":343,"src":344},"Spread, commission and swap as three separate cost lines: $4,782,670 charged in commission and $862,547 in swap across public ShowMyTrades accounts","\u002Fimages\u002Farticles\u002Fwhere-costs-hide.svg",[10,346,347],{},[348,349,350],"em",{},"A tester with a fixed spread and no swap has left out two of the three.",[14,352,104],{"id":103},[10,354,355,356,360],{},"Nowhere, deliberately. ShowMyTrades does not host backtests, upload simulations or accept a strategy report as a ",[49,357,359],{"href":358},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-track-record","track record",". Every account page is synced read-only from the broker, which is why the numbers above describe executed trades rather than modelled ones.",[10,362,363,364,129,366,369,370,373,374,129,377,380,381,384,385,388],{},"The modules that expose what a backtest hides are: ",[65,365,142],{},[65,367,368],{},"Total Swap Paid"," in the Advanced Statistics block, the real cost of the strategy in account currency; the ",[65,371,372],{},"Terminal"," panel, which reports ",[65,375,376],{},"Ping",[65,378,379],{},"Retransmission"," to the trade server, the conditions your fills were actually obtained under; and ",[65,382,383],{},"Trade History & Balance Progression",", whose ",[65,386,387],{},"Closed Trades"," tab lists each executed order at the price it was genuinely filled at rather than the price a tester would have granted it.",[10,390,391,392,395,396,399],{},"The ",[65,393,394],{},"Track Record Verified"," badge, held by 65 accounts, and ",[65,397,398],{},"Trading Privileges Verified",", held by 264, mark the records where that broker-to-page chain has been checked rather than asserted.",[14,401,160],{"id":159},[162,403,404,410,421,427],{},[165,405,406,409],{},[65,407,408],{},"\"It used every tick, so it is accurate.\""," Tick modelling improves the price path, not the fill. Your broker's spread, execution and rejections are still absent.",[165,411,412,415,416,420],{},[65,413,414],{},"\"It was tested over ten years.\""," ",[49,417,419],{"href":418},"\u002Fguides\u002Fhow-much-history-a-track-record-needs","Length is not independence",". A decade that contained one dominant regime is one observation, not 2,500.",[165,422,423,426],{},[65,424,425],{},"\"Only three parameters were optimised.\""," Three parameters at twenty values each is 8,000 experiments. The winner of 8,000 experiments is partly lucky by construction.",[165,428,429,432],{},[65,430,431],{},"\"The demo forward test confirmed it.\""," Demo servers fill optimistically and never reject. A demo result is a second simulation, not a first live test.",[10,434,435,436,206],{},"Before you trust any performance figure, tested or live, work through ",[49,437,439],{"href":438},"\u002Fguides\u002Fverifying-trading-performance-claims","how to verify trading performance claims",{"title":31,"searchDepth":208,"depth":208,"links":441},[442,443,444,445,446],{"id":16,"depth":208,"text":17},{"id":43,"depth":208,"text":44},{"id":59,"depth":208,"text":60},{"id":103,"depth":208,"text":104},{"id":159,"depth":208,"text":160},"Backtesting simulates a trading strategy on historical price data. What it can prove, what it cannot, and why live broker-synced results almost always differ.",false,{},[225,451,452],"what-is-a-verified-track-record","what-is-slippage",{"title":233,"description":447},"5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-backtesting","Backtesting","he7JKboqSnysaWcJ_U_Uz3xPVvizet9GFQbrgkBSinQ",{"id":458,"title":459,"body":460,"category":215,"date":216,"description":647,"draft":218,"extension":219,"meta":648,"navigation":218,"path":196,"related":649,"seo":651,"stem":652,"term":653,"updated":216,"__hash__":654},"glossary\u002F5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-curve-fitting.md","What Is Curve Fitting? How to Spot an Overfit Strategy",{"type":7,"value":461,"toc":640},[462,465,467,470,476,479,482,512,514,517,524,526,546,554,561,563,573,605,607,633],[10,463,464],{},"Curve fitting, also called overfitting, is tuning a strategy's parameters until it fits the historical data it was tested on, including that data's noise. The result describes the past precisely and predicts nothing. It is the most common reason a system that looked excellent in testing loses money the month it goes live.",[14,466,17],{"id":16},[10,468,469],{},"Every adjustable input is a degree of freedom. Search a grid of values and you are not testing one strategy, you are running one experiment per combination:",[22,471,474],{"className":472,"code":473,"language":27},[25],"Experiments = v1 × v2 × ... × vk\n\n4 parameters × 15 values each = 50,625 backtests\nThe best of 50,625 is chosen partly for its edge and\npartly for the noise it happened to land on\n",[29,475,473],{"__ignoreMap":31},[10,477,478],{},"The more experiments you run against a fixed history, the more certain it becomes that the winner owes its ranking to luck. The tester does not report this. It reports the winner as if it were the only candidate.",[10,480,481],{},"Four signs, in rough order of reliability:",[162,483,484,494,500,506],{},[165,485,486,489,490,493],{},[65,487,488],{},"Parameter cliffs."," Move a setting one notch either way and performance collapses. A real edge degrades gently; a fitted one falls off a table. A ",[49,491,492],{"href":221},"moving average"," that only works at period 47 is the textbook case.",[165,495,496,499],{},[65,497,498],{},"Too many parameters for the sample."," A rule set with six inputs validated on 150 trades is under-determined. There is no fixed ratio, but the direction is not in dispute.",[165,501,502,505],{},[65,503,504],{},"A suspiciously smooth equity curve."," Real returns are jagged. A near-straight diagonal in a backtest usually means either a fitted parameter set or a system that survives by not closing losers.",[165,507,508,511],{},[65,509,510],{},"Out-of-sample collapse."," Performance that holds in the fitting window and evaporates outside it. This is the definitive test, and it is only definitive the first time you look at the out-of-sample data.",[14,513,44],{"id":43},[10,515,516],{},"A curve-fitted system fails in a specific and expensive way: it does not lose slowly from the start. It behaves acceptably while the market resembles the fitting period, then breaks when the regime changes, usually with size on. The trader reads it as bad luck rather than as the model doing exactly what it was built to do.",[10,518,519,520,523],{},"The antidote is not a cleverer test. It is a live record, carrying real spread, commission and ",[49,521,522],{"href":278},"slippage",", long enough to have met conditions the developer never saw.",[14,525,60],{"id":59},[10,527,528,529,415,531,533,534,415,538,541,542,545],{},"Across the public accounts on ShowMyTrades with trading history (August 2026): median ",[49,530,76],{"href":75},[65,532,80],{},", median deepest ",[49,535,537],{"href":536},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-drawdown","drawdown",[65,539,540],{},"9.7%",", and a median of ",[65,543,544],{},"171 closed trades"," per account.",[10,547,548,549,553],{},"Those three numbers are the honest reference distribution. 38.2% of accounts have reached a drawdown over 20% and 17.6% over 50%. When a strategy is advertised with a profit factor above 3.0 and a ",[49,550,552],{"href":551},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-maximum-drawdown","maximum drawdown"," of 4%, it is not claiming talent, it is claiming a position outside a distribution built from 15.4 million synchronised trades. That claim can be true. It requires evidence, and the evidence is live.",[10,555,556,557,560],{},"The median of 171 closed trades is worth holding onto separately: it is ",[49,558,559],{"href":418},"a small sample for validating anything",", and it is the sample most live accounts are actually judged on.",[14,562,104],{"id":103},[10,564,391,565,568,569,572],{},[65,566,567],{},"Growth by Trade"," chart in the charts viewer indexes the curve by trade number instead of by date, which strips out the flattering effect of long idle periods and exposes whether the account is still working or merely still open. The ",[65,570,571],{},"Monthly Returns table"," shows every red month and every \"No Activity\" gap — a strategy quietly re-optimised after a bad month usually leaves a visible pause there.",[10,574,575,576,579,580,129,586,589,590,592,593,129,595,598,599,604],{},"In the Advanced Statistics block, read ",[65,577,578],{},"Profit Factor"," beside ",[65,581,582],{},[49,583,585],{"href":584},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-standard-deviation-in-trading","Standard Deviation",[65,587,588],{},"Z-Score (Probability)",": a strong profit factor resting on unusually uniform trade returns describes an account too smooth to have met varied conditions, which is what a parameter set shaped around a single period tends to produce. The ",[65,591,116],{}," panel's ",[65,594,120],{},[65,596,597],{},"Comment Filter"," let you isolate one expert advisor on a multi-strategy account and read its statistics alone. The ",[65,600,601],{},[49,602,394],{"href":603},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-a-verified-track-record"," badge, on 65 accounts today, confirms the data came from the broker rather than from a report file.",[14,606,160],{"id":159},[162,608,609,615,621,627],{},[165,610,611,614],{},[65,612,613],{},"\"It passed out-of-sample.\""," Once you have looked at the out-of-sample results and adjusted anything, that data is in-sample. You get one look.",[165,616,617,620],{},[65,618,619],{},"\"More history prevents overfitting.\""," What matters is the ratio of observations to free parameters, not the calendar span. Adding years while adding filters can make it worse.",[165,622,623,626],{},[65,624,625],{},"\"Walk-forward optimisation solves it.\""," It reduces the problem and can reproduce it: re-optimising every window on the same instrument is still a search over one history.",[165,628,629,632],{},[65,630,631],{},"\"It's live, so it can't be curve fitted.\""," A system re-tuned every time it stumbles is being fitted in production. The account is real; the edge is still being invented backwards.",[10,634,635,636,206],{},"To see what separates a record that settles this question from one that cannot, read ",[49,637,639],{"href":638},"\u002Fguides\u002Fverified-vs-unverified-track-records","verified vs unverified track records",{"title":31,"searchDepth":208,"depth":208,"links":641},[642,643,644,645,646],{"id":16,"depth":208,"text":17},{"id":43,"depth":208,"text":44},{"id":59,"depth":208,"text":60},{"id":103,"depth":208,"text":104},{"id":159,"depth":208,"text":160},"Curve fitting is optimising a strategy until it describes past data perfectly and predicts nothing. The warning signs, and why only live results settle it.",{},[224,650,451],"what-is-a-profit-factor",{"title":459,"description":647},"5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-curve-fitting","Curve Fitting","vqLjOQR1TVBKQwjtcbTsRhfF1UU3Px_k_Vsr9UBTTqY",{"id":656,"title":657,"body":658,"category":215,"date":216,"description":827,"draft":218,"extension":219,"meta":828,"navigation":218,"path":154,"related":829,"seo":832,"stem":833,"term":834,"updated":216,"__hash__":835},"glossary\u002F5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-trend-following.md","What Is Trend Following? Definition and Real Numbers",{"type":7,"value":659,"toc":820},[660,663,665,671,674,680,683,691,693,696,702,704,727,730,736,738,768,785,787,813],[10,661,662],{},"Trend following is a class of strategy that enters in the direction of a price move already under way and stays in until the move ends. It usually wins fewer than half its trades and earns its return from a small number of large winners. The defining property is the shape of the payoff, not the entry signal.",[14,664,17],{"id":16},[10,666,667,668,670],{},"The entry is deliberately unremarkable: a breakout of an N-day range, a ",[49,669,492],{"href":221}," crossover, a new high in a ranked universe. The exit does the work — a trailing stop that keeps the position while the move continues and gives back a fixed portion of the profit when it stops.",[10,672,673],{},"Everything then hangs on one arithmetic identity, the same one the platform uses for Expectancy:",[22,675,678],{"className":676,"code":677,"language":27},[25],"Expectancy = (Win rate × Avg win) − (Loss rate × Avg loss)\n\nTrend example:  0.35 × 3.0R − 0.65 × 1.0R = +0.40R per trade\nScalping example: 0.85 × 0.4R − 0.15 × 2.0R = +0.04R per trade\n",[29,679,677],{"__ignoreMap":31},[10,681,682],{},"Both are profitable. The first loses on nearly two trades out of three and is the stronger system. A win rate read without the average win and average loss beside it carries no information at all.",[10,684,685,686,690],{},"Because the return is concentrated in a handful of trades, ",[49,687,689],{"href":688},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-position-sizing","position sizing"," is not a refinement here, it is the strategy. Size too small on the trades that run and the tail that pays for everything is cut off.",[14,692,44],{"id":43},[10,694,695],{},"The cost of the structure is time spent losing. A trend system will produce long flat stretches punctuated by sharp advances, and the flat stretches are where people abandon it — usually shortly before the move that would have paid for them. Judging one over a quarter tells you about that quarter's market, not about the system.",[10,697,698,699,701],{},"It also means the ",[49,700,537],{"href":536}," is not a malfunction. It is the entry fee, paid in advance, every time.",[14,703,60],{"id":59},[10,705,706,707,710,711,77,713,715,716,718,719,721,722,724,725,206],{},"Across the public accounts on ShowMyTrades with trading history (August 2026), the median win rate is ",[65,708,709],{},"68.8%",", the median ",[49,712,76],{"href":75},[65,714,80],{},", and the median trade lasts ",[65,717,71],{},". The median account has closed ",[65,720,67],{}," and shows a ",[49,723,323],{"href":322}," of ",[65,726,326],{},[10,728,729],{},"That is close to the mirror image of a trend follower: high hit rate, short holding period, and a profit factor barely above break-even — the classic signature of many small wins funding occasional large losses. It is worth knowing what the crowd you are being compared against actually looks like.",[10,731,732,733,206],{},"The sample point matters too. At a median of 171 closed trades, a trend system winning 35% of the time has produced roughly 60 winners, and the bulk of its return may sit in eight or ten of them. Remove those and the record is negative. That is not fragility in the account, it is what the payoff structure guarantees, and it is why these systems ",[49,734,735],{"href":418},"need years rather than months before the numbers mean anything",[14,737,104],{"id":103},[10,739,740,741,744,745,125,748,129,751,754,755,760,761,129,764,767],{},"The Advanced Statistics block is where the structure becomes visible. Read ",[65,742,743],{},"Win Rate"," together with ",[65,746,747],{},"Avg. Win",[65,749,750],{},"Avg. Loss",[65,752,753],{},"Expectancy"," — a low win rate beside a large average win is a working trend system, and a high win rate beside a much larger average loss is the opposite. ",[65,756,757],{},[49,758,139],{"href":759},"\u002Fglossary\u002Fwhat-is-average-trade-length"," tells you whether the holding period matches the claimed style; a \"trend following\" account whose average trade lasts nine minutes is something else. ",[65,762,763],{},"Longs Won",[65,765,766],{},"Shorts Won"," show whether the record is a genuine two-sided system or a directional bet on one market that trended.",[10,769,391,770,773,774,779,780,592,782,784],{},[65,771,772],{},"Drawdown"," view in the charts viewer is the underwater plot: it shows how deep, how often and above all how long, which is the number that decides whether a trend system is investable. The ",[65,775,776],{},[49,777,571],{"href":778},"\u002Fguides\u002Fmonthly-returns-table-explained"," exposes the flat and red stretches the equity curve smooths over, and the ",[65,781,116],{},[65,783,124],{}," filter lets you separate the long holds from the noise on a mixed account.",[14,786,160],{"id":159},[162,788,789,795,801,807],{},[165,790,791,794],{},[65,792,793],{},"\"A 35% win rate means the system is broken.\""," It means nothing on its own. Pair it with Avg. Win and Avg. Loss, then read Expectancy.",[165,796,797,800],{},[65,798,799],{},"\"I'll tighten the stop to raise the win rate.\""," Tighter stops raise the hit rate and cut the tail that produces the return. It is the most reliable way to convert a profitable trend system into a losing one.",[165,802,803,806],{},[65,804,805],{},"\"It underperformed for eight months, so it stopped working.\""," Eight flat months is a normal interval for this structure, not a verdict.",[165,808,809,812],{},[65,810,811],{},"\"The 68.8% win rate account is safer.\""," A high win rate is the easiest metric to engineer and the least predictive. Check the average loss before concluding anything.",[10,814,815,816,206],{},"Every metric named above is explained module by module in ",[49,817,819],{"href":818},"\u002Fguides\u002Freading-a-trading-account-dashboard","how to read a trading account dashboard",{"title":31,"searchDepth":208,"depth":208,"links":821},[822,823,824,825,826],{"id":16,"depth":208,"text":17},{"id":43,"depth":208,"text":44},{"id":59,"depth":208,"text":60},{"id":103,"depth":208,"text":104},{"id":159,"depth":208,"text":160},"Trend following buys strength and sells weakness, taking many small losses to catch a few large wins. Why the payoff structure matters more than the win rate.",{},[830,650,831],"what-is-a-moving-average","what-is-drawdown",{"title":657,"description":827},"5.glossary\u002Fwhat-is-trend-following","Trend Following","ansAwU3eNBt0UEtY5gNktLLC3lMWY3UVH_0PfLw4gIA",1787415690990]