One unit that compares everything
R is the distance from your entry to your initial stop. That distance is 1R, whatever the instrument, whatever the account size.
R-multiple = (exit − entry) ÷ (entry − initial stop)
The value of the unit is that it strips out everything that makes trades incomparable. A $180 win on gold and a $180 win on an index future are not obviously alike; a 1.8R and a 0.4R are. Once results are in R, a track record can be read as a single distribution instead of a list of unrelated amounts.
Note the word initial. R is measured against the stop you set before entering, not the one you moved. Recomputing R from a trailed stop is the most common way this metric gets quietly falsified: it turns every managed trade into a clean win and erases exactly the behaviour worth measuring.
The number this page adds: planned R against realised R
Most R calculators grade the outcome. That answers half the question.
If you enter the target you had in mind, this one also computes the R the plan was worth, and subtracts. A single trade closed 0.6R short of plan is nothing — a target that was never realistic, a session that ended, a piece of news. The same 0.6R gap across thirty trades is a habit, and it is the most expensive kind of habit there is, because it never appears as a loss anywhere in the account. The money was never lost. It was never collected.
The reverse gap matters too. Consistently exceeding plan means the targets are set too close, and the strategy is being under-harvested by its own instructions.
Reading a loss bigger than 1R
A result of −1R is a stop doing its job. A result of −1.6R means something else happened, and there are only three candidates:
- The stop was moved or removed. A decision, not an accident, and the journal usually remembers the reason.
- The stop was not filled at its price. A gap over the weekend, a news release, a spread that widened past the level. This is a market fact, not a discipline failure.
- The exit was manual and late. The level was passed and the position was still open.
These have three different fixes, and the R value alone cannot tell them apart — the fill data can. If your statement shows the requested price and the filled price, the difference between cause 1 and cause 2 is visible directly, and it is worth checking before deciding you have a discipline problem you may not have.
What R does not tell you
R deliberately ignores position size, so two 2R trades count the same even if one risked 0.5% of the account and the other 4%. That is a feature when judging setups and a defect when judging risk — a book of 2R winners taken at wildly varying size is not the consistent record it looks like in R terms.
The pairing that works: R for whether the method finds good trades, and percent-of-account for whether the sizing is under control. The first is on this page; the second is on the position size calculator. Neither substitutes for the other, and a track record quoted only in R is quietly hiding half the story.