profit Vs Profit factor

cardio · #1 (**permalink**) 02-10-2006, 02:53 PM

Hi Please help
Can anyone explain the difference between profit and profit factor to me. My high profit factor does not have the highest profit in optimizer results, even with now Money management (MM) and only buying 1 lot each time.

codersguru · #2 (**permalink**) 02-10-2006, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardio

Hi Please help
Can anyone explain the difference between profit and profit factor to me. My high profit factor does not have the highest profit in optimizer results, even with now Money management (MM) and only buying 1 lot each time.

cardio,

The profit factor is the ratio in percentage between the sum of all the win trades (Gross profit) and the sum of all the loss trades (Gross loss).

If the Gross profit = 74253.00 and the Gross loss = -13618.00
Then the Profit factor = (74253.00 /13618.00) = 5.45

cardio · #3 (**permalink**) 02-10-2006, 05:20 PM

Thanks

I need to run some checks to test this. Your definition is right. I will run some more over the weekend and get back to you with the results.

cardio · #4 (**permalink**) 02-10-2006, 05:22 PM

It is weird that in that the optimizer gives a pf of 2.13 - then I run the test with the optimizers results and I get a pf of 8.53?

Anyway - let me first test some more.

cardio · #5 (**permalink**) 02-10-2006, 07:24 PM

So, when only trading a fixed lot size, its the number of times you will win to the number of times you will lose. Anything then with a profit factor higher then 2 should be better then gambling.