P&L, or profit and loss, is the gain or loss of a trading account over a period. Net P&L is that sum once fees are subtracted: it is the only figure that matches what the account actually banked.
From gross to net
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In trading, P&L is short for profit and loss. To define it in one sentence: the money made or lost, on a position, on a day, or over a whole period. A daily P&L is a session's result; a monthly P&L is a month's.
Net P&L adds to that definition what the position cost in order to exist: the commission paid on entry and exit, the spread, and the swap if the position was held overnight. These fees are not an accounting detail, they leave the account exactly like a loss does.
A second distinction matters: realized P&L counts closed positions only, while unrealized P&L (sometimes rP&L for the realized part) values positions still open at the current price. The first is banked, the second can vanish before the close.
Net P&L = Σ (result of each closed trade) − commissions − spread − swap
A trade's result is itself (exit price − entry price) × size × point value, with the sign reversed on a short.
Point value differs across instruments: a point on an index future is not a pip on a currency pair. A journal that ignores this produces a wrong P&L on futures contracts.
Net P&L = 120 − 10 = $110. The trade earned 8% less than the chart suggested.
Put your gross P&L and your net P&L side by side over a month. The gap is your friction bill: commissions, spread and swap. In this page's example it is 8% of gross on a single trade, and it repeats on every round trip.
It is the only trading cost you can cut without learning anything. Trading less often, or at a cheaper broker, raises net without touching a single entry.
A period's net P&L must match the broker statement. When it does not, the gap almost always points at a precise cause: a missing trade, a commission that was not imported, a forgotten swap, or a point value misread on a futures contract.
A trading journal is first of all a PnL ledger, and running that check once, at the start, is what lets you trust every other statistic afterwards, since they all start from this figure.
The first flaw is displaying gross. Many platforms show a position's result before fees and file commission and swap in separate columns. The figure you remember at the end of a session is therefore often the more flattering of the two.
The second is mixing realized and unrealized. A daily P&L that includes positions still open adds a banked result to a valuation that can vanish before the close. The two are not read the same way.
The third concerns futures: point value. A journal that treats an index point like a currency pip produces a P&L wrong by a whole factor, and the error only shows when you compare against the statement.
The classic mistake. Judging a strategy on gross P&L. A system that makes $40 gross over 200 trades and pays $3 per round trip actually loses $560. Gross flatters and pays no bills: it only exists in screenshots.
| Indicator | Formula | What it measures | When to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net P&L | Σ results − fees | What the account banked | Checking against the statement |
| Gross P&L | Σ (exit − entry) × size | The result before fees | Measuring the friction bill |
| Total return | net P&L ÷ starting capital | The result relative to capital | Comparing two accounts |
| Expectancy | net P&L ÷ number of trades | What an average trade earns | Comparing two periods |
The gap between them is your friction bill. If it exceeds a quarter of gross, the first saving is not in your method but in your frequency or your broker.
Divide a round-trip commission by the value of one point: you get the number of points a trade must make just to lose nothing. On a very short style, that threshold changes everything.
One reconciliation at the start is enough. If the two figures agree, every statistic built on them is reliable; if they diverge, you know the import needs fixing before drawing any conclusion.
P&L stands for profit and loss. It is the gain or loss of a position or an account over a given period. On a statement labelled P/L or PnL, meaning and calculation stay exactly the same.
Gross counts only the price difference between entry and exit. Net additionally subtracts commissions, spread and swaps. On high-frequency trading, the gap between the two can exceed the gain itself.
Daily P&L is the cumulative result of the current session, closed positions included and often open positions valued too. It is the figure prop firms watch, because their daily loss limit is measured on it.
A trading journal connected to your broker pulls every trade with its fees and computes net P&L on its own, day by day. That is what Tradoshi does: the sync reads your history and the P&L calendar shows each session's result.
Realized, to judge a period: it counts only closed positions, so a banked result. Unrealized values open positions at the current price and can vanish before the close. It stays useful during the session, especially against a daily loss limit that often includes it.
In Tradoshi, every trade carries its net P&L, commission and swap already subtracted, and both fees stay recorded separately. The Reports screen shows them side by side: net P&L, gross P&L, Commissions, Swap and Total cost. The friction bill described above reads there with no calculation.
On the Dashboard, the net P&L card gives the period's result with the return as a percentage of capital underneath. The P&L calendar shows each session's result, and the Daily P&L chart the same thing day after day. It all comes from the sync with your broker or from your import, with nothing to copy by hand.
To go deeper on this: read the full guide. Every term is gathered in the glossary.