Velocity – The Speed Of The Return

How Fast Your Return Matters More Than You Think (And How to Measure It Like a Pro)

Most retail traders look at a trade and think: “Nice, I made 12%.”

The smart ones ask: “Yeah… but how fast?”

Because 12% in 8 days is completely different from 12% in 80 days. Speed turns good setups into monsters and turns mediocre ones into capital wasters.

I’ve been obsessed with this lately — training my brain to instantly judge setup quality by its effective annualized return (basically APR or CAGR for traders). Here’s the practical guide I wish I had earlier.

Why Speed of Return Is Everything

• A setup that delivers 10% in 10 days annualizes to roughly 1,000%+.
• The same 10% in 60 days barely scrapes 60-70% annualized.

One is potentially life-changing if repeatable. The other is barely worth the screen time.

This is how the real edge shows up — not just win rate, but return per unit of time.

TradingView Tools That Actually Help

1. The Classic Ruler (Measure Tool)
Hold Shift + Click and Drag. It shows:

• % return
• Days/hours
• Number of bars

Fast, but you still have to do the mental math.

2. Better Built-in Tools

• Date and Price Range tool — gives you a clean box with both time and % that stays on the chart.
• Long Position / Short Position tool — draws your trade and shows exact P/L % and risk-reward.

3. The Real Game-Changers (Community Indicators)
These do the heavy lifting for you:

• Annualized Return by TB_Research → Pick your start and end date and it instantly shows the annualized figure.
• CAGR Indicator (Flexible Holding Period) by Wongsakon → Excellent for comparing specific setups.
• Dynamic CAGR Line by Joy_Mukherjee

Search for these in TradingView Indicators. Add one or two to your layout and thank me later.

Quick Mental Math Cheat Sheet

For fast decisions without indicators:

• Rough Annualized ≈ (% Return ÷ Days) × 365
• Or use this reference table:

% Gain	Days Held	Rough Annualized
8%	7	~420%
12%	10	~440%+
15%	15	~650%
10%	30	~122%
20%	45	~162%

After doing this on 30-40 trades, your brain starts to feel the difference instantly.

My Personal Rule

If a setup can’t deliver at least 150-200% annualized with decent consistency and manageable risk, I usually pass. I’d rather wait for the fast movers.

High annualized + solid win rate + controlled drawdowns = the holy trinity.

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Final Tip: Start logging your trades with three columns: % Return | Days Held | Annualized. After a month you’ll see which patterns actually deserve your capital.

What do you think, lemmings? Drop your best “fast money” setups below — I’ll help you run the numbers.