A strategy that worked well in the first half of the year can lose money for weeks while its lifetime numbers still look healthy. By the time the lifetime average turns red, a good part of the earlier profit has usually gone back.
This page shows how to track each strategy over time with a rolling window, what to check every week, and how to decide whether to keep trading it, watch it closely or pause it.
Lifetime numbers versus rolling numbers
Lifetime expectancy averages every trade the strategy has ever taken. After 100 trades, twenty bad ones barely move it. A rolling window looks only at the most recent trades, for example the last 20, so it turns as soon as the strategy does.
In this illustrative strategy, a trader looking only at lifetime numbers would see a positive figure throughout. The rolling line shows the decline building across dozens of trades, early enough to reduce size before the account takes the full hit.
Rolling numbers are noisy, which is why one bad week is not enough to act on. Look at the direction across two or more reviews, not at a single reading.
Track each strategy on its own curve as well. If the account is green while a core strategy's cumulative P&L is flat or falling, another strategy is covering for it, and the blended account line will not tell you which.
What to track every week
Pick a short, fixed set of measures for each strategy and read the same ones every review. Adding a new indicator each week makes it impossible to see a trend.
- Rolling 20-trade expectancy, and whether it is rising, flat or falling.
- Rolling profit factor, against the floor you set for the strategy.
- Win rate together with average win and average loss, to catch early profit-taking or stops being widened.
- Current drawdown from the strategy's own peak, as a percentage of its capital, and how many sessions it has lasted.
- Trade count per week. A sudden rise in frequency often comes before a fall in quality.
Swing traders who close only a few trades a week can use the last 15 closed trades or the last 30 days instead. Choose one window per strategy and keep it for at least two review cycles before changing it.
Keep, watch or pause
Write these rules down before the review, when nothing is at stake. In the review, your only job is to see which band each strategy falls into.
Scaling up needs the same care as pausing. Add size in one step, for example from two lots to three, and treat the next 20 trades at the new size as a fresh sample. Larger positions can change how you manage a trade, and the rolling numbers will show it if they slip.
Read the numbers against market conditions
Edges rotate. A Nifty opening range breakout can work for months and then struggle for three weeks of narrow, low-volatility ranges that produce false breakouts. A weekly short-premium strategy can look smooth until one gap opening on a big news day undoes a quarter of gains.
Tag or note the conditions when a strategy dips: trending or choppy, high or low volatility, event weeks like the Union Budget or an RBI policy day. This helps you tell a temporary mismatch with the market apart from a setup that has stopped working.
A weekly tracking routine in TradeLyser
- Open Strategy Lab and scan the strategy cards for any change in win rate or net P&L since last week.
- For each live strategy, work out expectancy over its last 20 closed trades and compare it with last week's figure.
- Check the strategy's drawdown against the limit you wrote for it.
- Place each strategy in keep, watch or pause using your written rules.
- Write one line per strategy in your weekly review, for example: "ORB Nifty: watch. Rolling expectancy flat, drawdown 6% against an 8% limit."
Read last month's lines before you change any size. They show whether you followed your own rules or traded on mood, and they give a mentor something concrete to review.
Common tracking mistakes
- Relying on lifetime numbers, so a decaying strategy keeps full size for weeks.
- Changing the rolling window whenever it gives an answer you do not like.
- Scaling up after one strong stretch, such as Budget week or a trending Bank Nifty fortnight.
- Rewriting the rules after every red week, so no version of the strategy ever builds a sample.
- Letting paper or simulated trades flow into the live strategy before it has met its return criteria.
Questions traders ask
How do I know if my trading strategy has stopped working?
Track expectancy over the last 20 closed trades and compare it each week. If it stays below zero for two review cycles in a row while you followed the rules, treat the edge as unproven and pause live trading until a fresh sample recovers.
How long should I track a strategy before increasing position size?
As a rule of thumb, wait for at least 100 closed trades and two consecutive review cycles with positive rolling expectancy. Drawdown should also have stayed inside the limit you set for that strategy.
What is a rolling 20-trade expectancy?
It is the average result per trade over the most recent 20 closed trades of one strategy, recalculated as each new trade closes. It shows the current direction of a strategy, which lifetime averages are slow to reflect.