Paper trading track record
The performance numbers on a strategy card come from simulated, forward-tested trades.
Paper trading vs backtesting
Paper trading means the strategy generated signals in real time and tracked them as if they were real trades, but no money was risked. Backtesting, by contrast, runs the same rules against past data after the fact. Paper trading is usually a stronger test because it can't cheat by seeing the future.
What the numbers mean
- Win rate — percentage of closed trades that hit a take profit before the stop loss.
- Average R — average profit or loss expressed in units of risk.
- Trades — number of completed signals in the window.
- Max drawdown — the biggest peak-to-trough loss during the period.
Caveats
Paper results ignore live spread, slippage, delayed execution and psychological mistakes. A tight gold strategy on a 5M timeframe is especially sensitive to these. Use the track record as a health check, not a promise.