Maximum Adverse Excursion: Full Trade Path and Data Limits

Maximum adverse excursion (MAE) measures the greatest observed movement against a trade while it is open, on a stated price or money-P/L basis. Include the entire entry-to-exit interval, including losing trades and trades that never become profitable. MAE is historical, not the largest possible future loss or a guarantee that a stop will execute.

Define the Trade and Measurement Basis

Record instrument, side, actual fills, position size, entry/exit timestamps, time zone and the price observations used. Price-distance MAE and the largest floating money loss are different measurements. Cash MAE may need changing position size, conversion rates, spread, commissions and financing treatment.

MetaQuotes describes MAE as the loss observed during a trade and distinguishes it from favourable excursion in its official statistics explanation. That describes a measurement concept; it does not establish a MyVeridex feature or a universal trading rule.

Use Explicit Long and Short Formulas

Long price MAE = max(0, entry price − minimum chosen price while open)
Short price MAE = max(0, maximum chosen price while open − entry price)
MAE in pips = price MAE / stated pip size

Choose bid, ask or another reference consistently and disclose it. Liquidating a long normally references bid and a short ask; comparing actual entry fills with those marks can include an immediate spread effect. A mid-price or candle-only calculation is a different basis. Unknown prices must remain unknown rather than being filled with zero.

A Fully Specified Price-Distance Example

The examples use an explicitly chosen price series, not observed broker executions. Zero is allowed; “always positive” is incorrect for a non-negative magnitude convention. The final profit does not determine the adverse extreme: identical entry and exit prices can hide very different paths.

Check Whether the Data Can Establish MAE

Entry, exit and a saved stop value are insufficient to recover every price reached between fills. Tick or suitably sampled intratrade bid/ask history is needed for the selected basis. Coarse candles can miss extremes; a candle crossing entry or exit time can also include prices outside the trade interval.

Partial fills, scale-ins, hedged positions and partial exits require a documented definition of the trade and exposure through time. Do not sum individual MAE values as if they occurred simultaneously: account drawdown depends on concurrent positions and other account changes.

Use MAE as a Diagnostic, Not an Entry or Funding Verdict

Compare similar instruments, units, exposure and data resolution. Looking only at eventual winners creates a selected subset and cannot establish the loss distribution of all trades. A small observed MAE does not prove good timing, discipline or a future edge; a large value does not by itself identify its cause.

A stop is an order instruction, not a guaranteed maximum execution loss. Testing a tighter stop on the same selected winners does not show the result of the altered strategy. Preserve separate evaluation observations and cost/execution assumptions. No universal MAE multiple or provider qualifying threshold is established here.

What MyVeridex Currently Supports

The reviewed connection, scheduled-sync and statement calculations and AccountDetail view do not establish automatic per-trade MAE/MFE histories or winning/losing MAE reports. Their closed records and reconstructed daily balances do not recover the full intratrade quote path. This article does not promise that MyVeridex tracks those extrema, backtests a strategy or simulates provider acceptance from MAE.

MyVeridex connects MT4 and MT5 accounts directly and also imports supported MetaTrader statements.

Keep a Reproducible Excursion Record

1. Save fills, side, exposure, timestamps and the exact quote/P&L observations.
2. Disclose price side, sampling, units, costs and conversion treatment.
3. Keep zero and unavailable cases distinct.
4. Separate individual-trade MAE from account drawdown and observed recovery time.
5. Evaluate changes on separate data without turning historical measurements into promises.