---
title: "Metrics table"
description: "The metrics table is the Performance Metrics page's grouped read-out of 14 backtest metrics for your strategy beside the same metrics for its benchmark."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/metrics-table"
last_updated: "2026-09-12"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/metrics-table.md"
---

# Metrics table

The metrics table is the read-out on a strategy's **Performance Metrics** page that reports 14 backtest metrics for your strategy next to the same 14 metrics for its benchmark, grouped into five named blocks. Each metric has its own definition and its own conventions; this page is the map of the table — what sits where, and where to read each figure's full meaning.

**Also seen as:** the metrics page, the summary table

Fincanva shows it in two parts on one page: **Summary** (the whole period) and **By year** (the same story, one row per calendar year).

## What does the Summary table show?

**Summary** has three columns — the metric name, a **Portfolio** value and a **Benchmark** value — so every figure can be read against the benchmark run over the identical dates. The rows are grouped under five headings.

**Performance**

- **Total return (%)** — the whole-period gain or loss. See [total return](/docs/analysis/total-return).
- **Years** — not a metric but the span: the number of calendar years the backtest covers, carried to decimal months so a partial year counts. It is the denominator that turns a total into a yearly pace, which is why it sits in this group.
- **CAGR** — the compound yearly growth rate. See [CAGR](/docs/analysis/cagr).
- **AAGR** — the arithmetic yearly average, which takes CAGR's place in the same slot when **Reinvest profits** is off. See [AAGR](/docs/analysis/aagr).

**Drawdown**

- **Max drawdown** — the deepest peak-to-trough fall. See [max drawdown](/docs/analysis/max-drawdown).
- **Return-to-drawdown ratio** — the period's return divided by the size of that fall. See [return-to-drawdown ratio](/docs/analysis/return-to-drawdown-ratio).
- **Longest drawdown (months)** — the longest stretch spent below a prior peak. See [longest drawdown](/docs/analysis/longest-drawdown).
- **Longest recovery (months)** — the longest climb back from a trough to a prior peak. See [longest recovery](/docs/analysis/longest-recovery).

**Volatility and risk**

- **Volatility** — the annualized standard deviation of returns. See [volatility](/docs/analysis/volatility).
- **Risk-free rate** — the period-matched riskless baseline the risk-adjusted metrics subtract. See [risk-free rate](/docs/analysis/risk-free-rate).
- **Sharpe** — return above the risk-free rate per unit of volatility. See [Sharpe ratio](/docs/analysis/sharpe-ratio).

**Monthly performance**

- **Positive months (%)** — the share of months that closed up. See [positive months](/docs/analysis/positive-months).
- **Best month** and **Worst month** — the single strongest and weakest month of the period. See [best month and worst month](/docs/analysis/best-month-and-worst-month).

**Averages**

- **Monthly average** and **Yearly average** — the plain averages of the monthly and annual return series. See [monthly and yearly average](/docs/analysis/monthly-and-yearly-average).

The **Portfolio** value carries the colour: positive figures read green, negative red, and ratio rows are coloured against a neutral band. The **Benchmark** value is deliberately shown muted, because it is context rather than your result.

## How does the By year table work?

**By year** repeats six of the same metrics per calendar year: the columns are **Year**, **Annual return (%)**, **Max drawdown**, **Volatility**, **Return-to-drawdown ratio**, **Sharpe** and **Positive months (%)**. Years are listed newest first, and the page's footer pages through them 25 at a time by default, with 50, 100 and **All** available.

Each cell stacks two figures: your strategy's value on top, and a second, smaller line underneath. A **Benchmark** toggle in the card header decides what that second line is.

- **Value** shows the benchmark's own figure for that year, prefixed with "vs" — and the card's caption reads "Each cell: your portfolio, with the benchmark value below."
- **Delta** replaces it with the gap between the two, prefixed by an arrow: up and green when your strategy beat the benchmark on that metric, down and red when it trailed. The caption changes to "Each cell: your portfolio, with the gap vs the benchmark below."

Two things about **Delta** are easy to misread. First, the gap between two percentages is a difference in **percentage points**, so it is labelled **pp** rather than **%** — see [excess return](/docs/analysis/excess-return). Second, the arrow means "better", not "bigger": for **Volatility** a lower number is the better one, so a smaller volatility than the benchmark's shows an up arrow.

## Why does the CAGR row sometimes read AAGR?

Because the two annualization conventions share one slot and the **Reinvest profits** assumption chooses between them. With **Reinvest profits** on, the compounding assumption holds and the row is **CAGR**; with it off, profits are not compounded and the row becomes **AAGR**. The same choice flows into **Sharpe**, whose return term is whichever of the two is active. See [simulation assumptions](/docs/backtesting/simulation-assumptions).

## Where else do these metrics appear?

- A KPI strip above the table leads with four headline figures — **Sharpe ratio**, **Volatility**, **Longest drawdown** and **CAGR vs benchmark**.
- Every strategy row in your strategies list carries a compact version of the same read-out: **CAGR**, **Volatility**, **Sharpe** and **Max drawdown** as columns, alongside the **MTD**, **1M**, **YTD** and **1Y** return windows. All of them are shown by default and can be hidden from the **Columns** chooser. See [return windows](/docs/analysis/return-windows).
- The **Monthly Returns** page repeats the per-year figures in its compact **Total**, **DD** and **NP/DD** columns. See [months matrix](/docs/analysis/months-matrix).
- A Combined's [Strategy analytics](/docs/analysis/strategy-analytics) page repeats several of these figures per strategy — as cards of charts rather than as a table — and adds [Sortino](/docs/analysis/sortino-ratio), [Tracking error](/docs/analysis/tracking-error) and [Information ratio](/docs/analysis/information-ratio). The last two are measured against the parent Combined, not against the benchmark.

For a row-by-row walkthrough with each metric's convention stated in place, read [what every number in Performance Metrics means](/docs/analysis/what-every-number-in-performance-metrics-means).

## Defaults in Fincanva

- Every row is computed over the same period for your strategy and for the benchmark, because the benchmark runs as its own full simulation on the same dates and starting capital.
- Percentage rows are shown as percentages and ratio rows as plain numbers — **Sharpe** and **Return-to-drawdown ratio** are ratios, not percentages.
- The three simulation assumptions — **Costs & interests**, **Taxes**, **Reinvest profits** — change which pre-computed set of figures the table reads; the switch is immediate and does not re-run the backtest.
- **By year** opens in **Value** mode; the choice is a view preference and is not saved to the page's address.
- The table fills in only after a completed run. Before that the page reads "No results yet" and "Backtest this strategy to generate its metrics."

## Worked example

Read one **By year** cell out loud. In the **Annual return (%)** column, the row for 2022 shows **−14.2%** on top and, in **Value** mode, "vs −18.0%" below it: the strategy lost 14.2% that year while its benchmark lost 18.0%.

Flip the header toggle to **Delta** and the same cell shows **−14.2%** with **↑ 3.8pp** beneath it. The arrow points up and reads green because losing less than the benchmark is the better outcome on this metric, and the gap is 3.8 percentage points, not 3.8%. Move one column right to **Volatility**, where the strategy shows 11.0% against the benchmark's 15.5%: the delta is **↑ 4.5pp**, again up and green, because on volatility the smaller number is the better one.

## What counts as a good value?

No single row answers that, and the table is built so that no single row has to. Each metric answers one narrow question — how much, how fast, how deep, how bumpy, how often — and reading one in isolation is how a result gets misread: a high return with a deep max drawdown and a high return with a shallow one are very different results with the same first number.

The **Benchmark** column exists for the same reason. It tells you which part of a figure was the market and which part was the strategy's own doing, which is a genuinely different question from whether the figure is large.

*These figures describe what a strategy would have done on historical data, not what it will do. Fincanva provides no financial advice — see [Is this financial advice?](/docs/investing-theory/is-this-financial-advice).*