Breakeven threshold
When you move your stop to entry, the trade almost never closes at exactly zero: commission, swap and spread eat into it. The threshold tells the journal how far from zero a trade has to land before it really counts as a win or a loss.
The essentials
- It is a band around zero, in dollars. Anything closing inside it counts as flat.
- Flat trades drop out of the profit factor, but still count towards your total trades.
- With the threshold at 0 (the default) only an exact zero counts as flat, which in practice almost never happens.
What changes when you raise it
- Win rate
- Stops punishing you for trades you took to breakeven that closed at −$3 in commissions. Those no longer count as losers.
- Profit factor
- Computed only on trades that actually won or lost. Flat ones no longer pollute either side of the ratio.
- Breakeven
- The counter in the chart header stops sitting at zero and tells you how often you actually ended level.
How to set it
- Go to Performance → Metrics → Summary.
- In the chart header, type the amount into the «Breakeven threshold» field.
- Hit Apply. It is saved to your profile and also applies to the Statistics tab.
Tips
- A good starting point is what one trade costs you in commission and swap. If you are not sure, check «Total cost» in Statistics and divide it by your number of trades.
- Do not set it too high: putting $200 on an account risking $500 per trade would hide real losses as if they were breakeven.
Related
Advanced Statistics
The Statistics sub-tab of Performance → Metrics: the highest level of detail. Complements the standard analysis with advanced ratios, distributions, and a full per-symbol table.
Sharpe and average R:R
Sharpe tells you whether your returns compensate the volatility. R:R tells you whether your system needs to hit a lot or a little to be profitable.
Drawdown and Recovery factor
Drawdown is what can kill you (literally, in propfirms). Recovery factor tells you whether the reward compensates.