Quote from ssrrkk:
I think the Sharpe ratio is the answer. It tells you the trade-off between mean profitability versus std dev (risk).
Is sharpe ratio that good ... Is a trader with only 2%return,1%stddev as good as one with 20%return,10%stddev? The first one is just playing it safe.
I prefer performance index = %return X (1-%maxstdev) X no.of trades
Ratios can be ambiguous.