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Glossary / Performance metrics

MFE (Maximum Favourable Excursion)

Definition

How far a trade moved in your favour before it closed.

Why it matters

If MFE is consistently much larger than your realized win, you are exiting too early and leaving measurable money on the table.

Example

A trade closed at +$120 that reached +$700 first has an MFE of $700. If that pattern repeats across the sample, your exits, not your entries, are the problem.

How to track it in a journal

TradeStack calculates the core performance numbers — win rate, average win and loss, profit factor, expectancy, drawdown and consistency — automatically from imported trades, so mfe (maximum favourable excursion) stops being something you estimate and becomes something you read.

Related terms

Expectancy
The average profit or loss you can expect from each trade over a large sample.
Profit factor
Gross profit divided by gross loss.
Win rate
The share of your trades that close in profit.
Average win
Total profit from winning trades divided by the number of winning trades.

Questions that use this term

Keep reading

Trading journal guides
Expectancy, profit factor, drawdown, backtesting and the PDT rule.
Free trading calculators
Position size, risk-reward, expectancy and options profit.
Expectancy calculator
Expected profit per trade from your own numbers.
Broker CSV export guides
Step-by-step exports for Tradovate, NinjaTrader, IBKR and more.
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