Seven trades made money. Three lost money. That sounds like a good week—until you add the rupees. A high number of winning trades can hide a losing trading account. The size of the wins and losses matters, and charges take another share.
Count the rupees, not just the green marks
Imagine ten completed trades. Seven make ₹500 each, giving you ₹3,500. Three lose ₹2,000 each, taking away ₹6,000. You won seven out of ten times, but lost ₹2,500 overall before charges. These are made-up trades, not a strategy or a promise.
The winning percentage is 70%. That number describes how often a trade won. It says nothing about how much the winning trades earned or the losing trades cost. A screenshot full of small green profits can therefore tell a very incomplete story.
A lower winning percentage can tell a different story
Consider another invented set of ten trades. Four make ₹2,000 each: ₹8,000 in gains. Six lose ₹500 each: ₹3,000 in losses. This set has a lower winning percentage—40%—but a ₹5,000 gain before charges.
That does not make a 40% winning record a reliable trading method. It simply shows why the winning percentage cannot be judged on its own. Future trades may behave differently, and one unusually large loss can change the result.
Charges belong inside the calculation
Suppose the first set of trades has total trading charges of ₹600. The ₹2,500 trading loss becomes ₹3,100 after those charges. If the second set also costs ₹600, its ₹5,000 gain becomes ₹4,400. Personal income tax, if any, is separate from this example.
Use the actual charges in your contract notes and account statement. A contract note is the broker’s record of completed trades and their charges. NSE’s investor guidance recommends checking brokerage and other charges rather than assuming a headline brokerage offer is the full cost.
The danger is letting the occasional loss grow
A trader may book a small profit quickly because it feels good, then keep a losing trade open because closing it feels painful. Moving the exit further away or buying more just to reduce the average purchase price can turn one manageable loss into a much larger one.
The remedy is not to pick a magic winning percentage. Decide before entry what would make the trade wrong, how much money can be lost without affecting household needs, and how the position would be closed. A planned exit can still execute at an unexpected price, so allow for uncertainty. Our position-sizing article explains how the number of shares affects the money at risk.
Review a complete record
For each trade, write down the actual gain or loss after trading charges. Include all trades—not only those shown in successful screenshots. Review how large the typical win and typical loss were, whether a few outsized trades dominated the result, and whether you followed the written plan.
Ten trades are enough for an arithmetic example, not enough to establish that a method works. A short winning run can be luck. Results from practice trading may also leave out real execution delays and costs.
If losses are growing, stop and review before adding money. Keep rent, school fees, emergency savings and long-term investments outside the trading experiment. Read how to write a trading plan before treating a higher winning percentage as progress.
The next time someone says they win most trades, ask what their full record earned after costs. Frequent wins are satisfying. Only the complete rupee result tells you whether the account gained or lost.
Educational content, not a recommendation to trade or personal financial advice. All examples are invented and exclude personal income tax. Trading can cause substantial losses. Sources checked on 2 October 2026.