---
title: "Positive months"
description: "Positive months is the share of months in a backtest period that closed with a positive return, shown in the metrics table as \"Positive months (%)\"."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/positive-months"
last_updated: "2026-07-25"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/positive-months.md"
---

# Positive months

Positive months is the share of months in the backtest period that closed with a positive return, expressed as a percentage. The [metrics table](/docs/analysis/metrics-table) lists it as "Positive months (%)" in the **Monthly performance** group. It is a count-based measure: every month contributes equally whether it gained 0.1% or 12%, so positive months describes how *often* a strategy went up, never by how much.

**Also seen as:** monthly win rate, hit rate, up months

## How is positive months calculated?

Positive months divides the number of months whose return was above zero by the number of months in the period.

$$
\text{positive months} = \frac{\text{number of months with a return above } 0}{\text{total number of months in the period}}
$$

where: each month's return is the figure the monthly returns view shows for that month, and the total is every month of the simulated period.

## What counts as a good value?

A figure above 50% means more months closed up than down, and a figure near 100% means the strategy rarely had a losing month. On its own the number says nothing about magnitude, so it can be high while the outcome is poor: a strategy that gains a little in eleven months and loses heavily in the twelfth can still report over 90% positive months. Read it beside [best month and worst month](/docs/analysis/best-month-and-worst-month), which show the size of the extremes, and [max drawdown](/docs/analysis/max-drawdown), which shows the deepest fall.

## Defaults in Fincanva

- Positive months appears as "Positive months (%)" in the **Monthly performance** group of the metrics table, shown as a whole-number percentage.
- The same measure is repeated as a KPI on the monthly returns view, labelled "Positive months", and per calendar year in the by-year metrics table as "Positive months (%)".
- It is computed over the months of the backtest period, from the same month-by-month return series the [monthly returns heatmap](/docs/analysis/reading-the-monthly-returns-heatmap) displays.
- A month that closes exactly flat is not a positive month — the test is a return above zero.

## Worked example

A ten-year backtest covers 120 months, and 84 of them closed with a positive return. Positive months is 84 ÷ 120 = 0.70, displayed as 70%. That means roughly seven months in ten went up. It does not mean the strategy was up 70% of the time by value: the remaining 36 months could each have been small losses, or a handful of them could hold the whole of the run's max drawdown, and the 70% figure would read the same either way.

*Positive months describes 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).*