R-Multiple Calculator, What R Is and How to Compute Yours

Aurafy is a young, independent trading journal. It earns trust by keeping the local app usable without an account, making desktop data exportable, and being clear about which features are free and which require Pro.

The R formula

R = net_pnl / risk. Risk, for a trade with a stop, is |entry_price - stop_price| × point_value × quantity. For a 2-contract NQ long at 21000 with a stop at 20990: risk = 10 points × $20/point × 2 = $400. If you exit at 21015 for a net profit of $600, that's 1.5R. R is a unit-free ratio, which is why it's comparable across instruments, sizes, and market regimes.

Why dollar P&L misleads

A $500 winner sounds great. A $500 winner where you risked $1000? That's 0.5R, you're taking bad trades and getting lucky. A $200 winner where you risked $50 is 4R, better expectancy, better process, even though the dollars are smaller. Over 500 trades, traders who optimize for R end up with better real dollars than traders who optimize for dollars directly, because R optimization forces good risk sizing.

Computing R when you don't set a stop

No stop? Pick a "default R" based on your account, typically 1% of account value, or a fixed dollar amount like $100 or $200 per trade. Every trade then gets R = net_pnl / default_risk. It's less precise than per-trade risk but it's consistent, which is what matters for comparing trades across months.

Expectancy and the math of the edge

Expectancy = average R per trade. An edge-positive trader might have +0.3R expectancy, meaning over 100 trades, they're up 30R. At 1% risk per trade, that's +30% on the account. Win rate matters less than most traders think: a 40% win rate at +2R winners / -1R losers gives +0.2R expectancy. A 60% win rate at +0.5R / -1R gives -0.1R, losing system, positive win rate.

How Aurafy tracks R

Every trade in Aurafy gets an R-multiple automatically, computed from the stop price you set (or your default risk if you didn't). The trade log, stats page, and dashboard all sort by R. Expectancy is computed per-setup, per-instrument, per-tag, per-time-of-day so you can see which slices of your trading are edge-positive and which are noise.