Glossary / Market structure
Slippage
Definition
The difference between your expected fill price and the price you actually get.
Why it matters
Slippage is a real cost that backtests underestimate. Logging expected versus actual entry price is the only way to measure yours.
Example
Expecting a fill at 1.0850 and getting 1.0853 on 1 standard lot costs $30 - repeated over 200 trades that is $6,000 of edge.
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 slippage stops being something you estimate and becomes something you read.
Related terms
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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