---
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/glossary/positive-months"
last_updated: "2026-07-25"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/glossary/positive-months.md"
---

# Positive months

Positive months is the share of months in the [backtest](/glossary/backtest) period that closed with a positive return, expressed as a percentage. The [metrics table](/glossary/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](/glossary/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](/glossary/best-month-and-worst-month), which show the size of the extremes, and [max drawdown](/glossary/max-drawdown), which shows the deepest fall.

## How does Fincanva handle it?

- 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.

## What does it look like in practice?

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.

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)