---
title: "What every number in Performance Metrics means"
description: "Performance Metrics reports your backtest's return, drawdown, volatility and monthly figures; this guide explains each row and its convention."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/what-every-number-in-performance-metrics-means"
last_updated: "2026-07-23"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/what-every-number-in-performance-metrics-means.md"
---

# What every number in Performance Metrics means

**Performance Metrics** turns your backtest into a table of return, drawdown, volatility, and monthly-performance figures. This guide walks each row in the order the app shows it, states the convention Fincanva uses, and links to the full definition of each term.

↗ See this in Fincanva — a strategy's Analysis, under Performance Metrics

## Before you start
Run a backtest first — the metrics fill in only after a strategy has been simulated. Open your strategy, go to **Analysis**, and select **Performance Metrics**; the figures sit in a grouped table under the headings **Performance**, **Drawdown**, **Volatility and risk**, **Monthly performance**, and **Averages**. Every value is stored internally as a fraction (for example `0.153`) and formatted for display as a percentage ("15.3%"), while ratio rows such as **Sharpe** and **Return-to-drawdown ratio** are shown as plain numbers.

## What do the Performance rows show?
The **Performance** group reports how much the strategy made and how fast.

- **Total return (%)** is the whole-period return of the strategy over the backtest — the total gain or loss from the first simulated day to the last. See [total return](/docs/analysis/total-return).
- **Years** is the number of calendar years between the first and last simulated date, carried to decimal months so partial years count.
- **CAGR** is the compound (geometric) annual growth rate: `(1 + total return) ^ (1 / years) − 1`. It is the row shown when the **Reinvest profits** toggle is on. See [CAGR](/docs/analysis/cagr).
- **AAGR** is the average (arithmetic) annual growth rate: `total return ÷ years`. CAGR and AAGR share one table slot — AAGR appears instead of CAGR when **Reinvest profits** is off. See [AAGR](/docs/analysis/aagr).

## What do the Drawdown rows show?
The **Drawdown** group measures how far the strategy fell and how long it took to come back.

- **Max drawdown** is the largest peak-to-trough decline of the capital curve over the period. See [drawdown](/docs/analysis/max-drawdown).
- **Return-to-drawdown ratio** is the period return divided by the size of the max drawdown (`return ÷ |max drawdown|`). It is a plain, public ratio — the same figure the heatmap labels **NP/DD**. See [return-to-drawdown ratio](/docs/analysis/return-to-drawdown-ratio).
- **Longest DD (months)** is the longest stretch, in months, the strategy stayed below a prior peak. See [longest drawdown](/docs/analysis/longest-drawdown).
- **Longest recovery (months)** is the longest time, in months, it took to climb back to a prior peak after the trough. See [longest recovery](/docs/analysis/longest-recovery).

## What do the Volatility and risk rows show?
The **Volatility and risk** group describes how bumpy the ride was and how the return compares to a risk-free baseline.

- **Volatility** is the annualized standard deviation of returns, using the standard 252-trading-day convention (the daily figure is scaled by √252). The group heading and the KPI strip call this same quantity **Volatility**. See [volatility](/docs/analysis/volatility).
- **Risk-free rate** is a short-term reference interest rate drawn from real market data, matched to the period of your backtest; where that data is missing, a fallback assumption is used. The row shows the period average. See [risk-free rate](/docs/analysis/risk-free-rate).
- **Sharpe** is the Sharpe ratio: `(annualized return − risk-free rate) ÷ annualized volatility`. The annualized-return term is CAGR when **Reinvest profits** is on and AAGR when it is off. Other views label the same figure **Sharpe ratio**. See [Sharpe ratio](/docs/analysis/sharpe-ratio).

## What do the Monthly performance rows show?
The **Monthly performance** group summarises the strategy month by month.

- **Positive months (%)** is the share of months in the period that ended with a positive return. See [positive months](/docs/analysis/positive-months).
- **Best month** and **Worst month** are the highest and lowest single-month returns over the period. See [best month and worst month](/docs/analysis/best-month-and-worst-month).

## What do the Averages rows show?
The **Averages** group reports simple averages of the return series. **Monthly average** is the plain average of the monthly return series, and **Yearly average** is the plain average of the annual return series. See [monthly and yearly average](/docs/analysis/monthly-and-yearly-average).

## How are these numbers annualized?
Every annualized figure on this page shares one basis: Fincanva scales volatility with the √252 trading-day convention and measures years as geometric calendar years carried to decimal months. Values are stored as fractions and formatted for display, and the risk-free baseline is a real, period-matched market series rather than a fixed value — except where market data is missing, in which case a fallback assumption is used.

## Metrics shown in other views
Some figures live on other analysis surfaces rather than the main metrics table. The **Per-component metrics** table adds a [Sortino ratio](/docs/analysis/sortino-ratio), [tracking error](/docs/analysis/tracking-error), and [information ratio](/docs/analysis/information-ratio) for each part of a strategy. The start-date sensitivity view reports [average pain](/docs/analysis/average-pain). Two textbook risk measures are worth knowing even though Performance Metrics does not display them today: [beta](/docs/analysis/beta), which appears in the Beta Neutral allocation method rather than as a metric, and [alpha](/docs/analysis/alpha). The [Fincanva score](/docs/analysis/fincanva-score) summarises overall quality — see [What the Fincanva score is and how to read it](/docs/analysis/what-the-fincanva-score-is-and-how-to-read-it).

*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).*