# What is R and how do I read my backtest in it?

Strategies & bots · Where: Strategy › Results › Read it in R · Updated 2026-10-20

R is one unit of what a trade risked. Read it in R takes a winning trade from your own run and says it in those terms: the average loser cost this much, so that is one R, and this win made three of them. Under it, the average R per trade, the longest losing streak and a quality score with its sample size.

## Step by step

1. **The worked trade** One real trade from the run, in money and then in R, so the unit is yours before the numbers are.
2. **Average R per trade** What a trade is worth over many. Positive means the rules pay over time; the size of the number says how much.
3. **Longest losing streak** The most losses in a row the test saw. Live trading can produce a longer one.
4. **Quality score** Average R over how much R varies, scaled by the number of trades up to one hundred. Below two is hard to trade, three and up is strong. Under thirty trades the row says small sample.
5. **Why R** It makes a run on five hundred dollars comparable with one on fifty thousand, and a fifteen-minute idea with a daily one.

Web page: https://buildtrade.app/help/read-it-in-r/