A track record is the easiest thing in trading to dress up and the hardest to read honestly. A single headline number — a return, a win rate, a profit figure — can be technically true and still deeply misleading. Reading one properly means asking a handful of pointed questions before you let the result mean anything. None of them is hard; the discipline is in actually asking them rather than admiring the headline.
Check the sample size
Start with how much evidence there is. A record built on a dozen trades, or a few weeks, proves almost nothing — randomness alone produces impressive short runs. Ask how many trades and how long a period the record covers. A small sample with a great number is a story; a large sample with a steady number is closer to evidence.
Ask whether costs are included
A result gross of friction flatters every line on the page. Confirm that fees, the spread, and slippage were charged inside the record, not bolted on as an afterthought or quietly ignored. A track record that beats a realistic cost model is worth far more than one that never had to pay it — and the gap between the two is where many impressive numbers live. You can put a figure on that friction with the trading cost calculator.
Read the worst drawdown
A smooth average can hide a brutal low. Find the deepest peak-to-trough fall in the record and ask the honest question: could you have held through it without intervening? A return you could never have sat through is not a return you would have captured. The drawdown and recovery calculator shows how punishing a deep hole is to climb out of.
Question the window
Finally, ask why these dates. A record that starts at a convenient low and ends at a convenient high is cherry-picked, and the same strategy over a fuller, less flattering period often tells a different story. A trustworthy track record survives being read across a window its author did not choose.
Score it on risk-adjusted terms
Once the record passes these checks, judge it by reward per unit of risk rather than by raw return. That is exactly what the Sharpe calculator is for — it stops a high number earned through reckless risk from looking the same as a steady one earned carefully.
A track record is an argument, not a guarantee. Reading it well means demanding the sample, the costs, the drawdown, and the window before you grant it any weight — and even then, past results never promise future ones. Nothing here is financial advice.