What Is Average Trade Length? Formula and Real Data

Average trade length is the mean time a position stayed open, measured from the moment it was opened to the moment it was closed, across every closed trade on the account. It describes the holding period a strategy actually used, as recorded by the broker, rather than the one it was designed around. It is the fastest single check on whether a described strategy and a published track record are the same thing.

How it works

Every closed trade carries an open time and a close time. The metric is the arithmetic mean of the gaps, calculated on our servers from the account's trade log and sent to the page ready to display.

Avg. trade length = Σ (close time − open time) / closed trades carrying both timestamps

Three properties of that formula decide how to read it.

It is a mean, not a median. One position left open for three months sits in the same average as four hundred trades that lasted ninety seconds, and moves the result far more than any of them. A short average is therefore strong evidence of short trades; a long one can come from a handful of outliers.

It counts closed trades only, and only buy and sell orders — deposits, withdrawals and cancelled pending orders are excluded. A floating loser held open for a year contributes nothing until the day it is finally closed, at which point the average jumps.

Positions are counted separately, not merged. A grid running twenty concurrent orders logs twenty durations, so the figure answers "how long was a trade open", not "how long was the account exposed".

Why it matters

Holding period is the one structural fact about a strategy that a trade log cannot hide. A track record described as swing trading, with a four-minute average, is not swing trading, whatever the description says. Neither reading is better than the other; the mismatch is the finding.

It also decides which costs dominate. Spread and commission are paid once per trade, so they weigh heaviest on the shortest holds. Swap accrues per night and only touches positions carried through the rollover. Two systems with identical gross results and different holding periods pay for entirely different things.

And it sets how much a track record can prove per unit of time. An account averaging two hours produces evidence quickly; one averaging three weeks needs years to reach the same number of independent outcomes, which is why holding period and profit factor have to be read together.

What the data shows

The figures below describe accounts published on ShowMyTrades, not traders in general. Across the published accounts with trading history (August 2026), the median trade lasts 2.4 hours and the median account holds 171 closed trades.

That is an intraday population. The median account opens and closes inside the same session, so most of its positions never reach a rollover — yet the same records carry $862,547 in swap, and 86.3% of accounts with any swap pay net negative swap. The overnight cost is concentrated in the minority of accounts that carry positions, and for them it is a real line item rather than a rounding error.

The automation figures explain the short median. The median autotrading share is 99% and 53.9% of accounts are more than 90% automated. Programs close positions when a rule fires, not at the end of the working day.

Where you see it on ShowMyTrades

Avg. Trade Length is the last row of the Trades column in Advanced Statistics, in the Table view, on the owner's dashboard and on the public account page alike. It adapts its unit: minutes below an hour, one decimal of hours below a day, then days and hours above that.

The same panel turns holding time into a distribution. The Duration button, fourth in the Table / Weekday / Hourly / Duration switch, opens a scatter plot titled Trade Duration vs Profitability: hours held on the horizontal axis, profit or loss on the vertical, bubbles sized by volume in lots and split into Winning Trades and Losing Trades. One limit worth knowing: it plots the most recent 200 closed trades, not the whole history, so it reads current behaviour rather than a lifetime. Every result on it is net of commission and swap. Hovering gives the ticket, symbol, volume, duration, P/L and the open and close times to the minute.

Per trade, the Trade History & Balance Progression table carries an optional Duration column — closed trades only, off by default, switched on from the column menu — formatted as 2d 5h, 3h 14m, 12m, 4m 20s or 42s.

Common misunderstandings

• "The average is the typical trade." It is a mean, and holding times have a long right tail. Check the Duration scatter before assuming the average describes any real trade.
• "A short average proves scalping." It can also come from a system that closes winners in minutes and holds losers for weeks — the average shortens while the risk lengthens.
• "Open trades count." They do not, until they close. A long-running floating position is invisible here by construction.

For how holding period reads alongside every other number on an account page, see how to read a trading account dashboard.

Related terms