In-plan rate: the metric that matters more than P&L
If you could show one number on your trading dashboard and nothing else, it should not be P&L. P&L is a lagging, compounded, noisy output. The number that predicts P&L — and is actionable within the same session — is your in-plan rate: the percentage of trades you took that matched a setup you defined in advance.
Why P&L fails as a daily metric
P&L is the sum of a lot of things, most of which you don't control on the timescale of a session. You can have a disciplined week and lose money because three in-plan setups failed. You can have an undisciplined week and make money because a tilt trade worked. If you manage to P&L on a daily basis, you reward the undisciplined week and punish the disciplined one. Over a quarter, that's catastrophic.
In-plan rate decouples your behaviour from market noise. A 90 % in-plan day is a good day even if P&L is negative — because the losses were real, planned losses that your expectancy model already priced in.
How to calculate it
Every trade has a binary tag: in-plan or off-plan. An in-plan trade matched a pre-defined setup from your playbook; the entry criteria, invalidation, and sizing all fit a rule you wrote down before seeing this chart. Off-plan means any of those pieces were ad-hoc.
In-plan rate = (in-plan trades / total trades) × 100. Simple. The honesty constraint is that you have to tag at log time, not at end-of-day. Tag it after the fact and the number inflates toward fiction.
What a good number looks like
- Below 60 %: you're not really running a strategy — you're reacting.
- 60–75 %: edge exists, off-plan trades are eating it.
- 75–85 %: typically profitable, drawdowns recoverable.
- 85 %+: consistent. Scaling up account size starts to compound.
Why most traders avoid measuring it
Because the number is more honest than P&L, and honesty about discipline is uncomfortable. A losing week you can blame the market. A 48 % in-plan week you can only blame yourself.
How Axiont surfaces it
Axiont puts in-plan rate on the dashboard above P&L by design. Every trade log requires the tag before it saves. The 30-day trend is drawn as a line — when it starts trending down, you see it in real time, not after a catastrophic week.