The total profit or loss on your trades — the scorecard for your trading performance.
P&L is the running total of how much money you've made or lost. It comes in two flavors: realized P&L (from closed trades — locked in) and unrealized P&L (from open trades — still moving). Pros track both, but the realized number is the only one that matters at the end of the month.
P&L can be measured in dollars, in pips, in R-multiples (multiples of your initial risk), or as a percentage of starting equity. Each tells a different story. Dollars matter for taxes. Pips matter for system evaluation. R-multiples matter for risk-adjusted thinking. Percentages matter for compounding.
A trader who's up $5,000 on a $10,000 account is up 50%. The same trader up $5,000 on a $1,000,000 account is up 0.5%. Both numbers are real, but only one of them tells you anything useful about the trader's skill.
Prop firms like FTMO measure traders on a profit target (usually 8-10%) over 30 days, with strict daily drawdown limits. The P&L scorecard is the entire evaluation.
Frequently asked about p&l (profit and loss)
What is a p&l (profit and loss) in trading?+
The total profit or loss on your trades — the scorecard for your trading performance.
When will I see p&l (profit and loss) used in real trading?+
On every broker dashboard, every trading journal, every prop firm scorecard.
What is the most common mistake traders make with p&l (profit and loss)?+
Obsessing over daily P&L. Markets are noisy on the day-to-day. Look at WEEKLY P&L for system health and MONTHLY P&L for strategic decisions. Daily checks just feed emotion.
What do experienced traders know about p&l (profit and loss) that beginners don't?+
Track P&L in R-multiples, not dollars. "+12R this month" tells you the system worked regardless of size. "+$1,200" hides whether you were lucky on size or smart on setups.
Read the lesson here. Mark the chart on TradingView. Compare brokers with the checklist.
TradingView is the chart workspace most learners already recognize: watchlists, alerts, drawings, and clean multi-market charts. Broker research stays methodology-first: jurisdiction, costs, platform, withdrawals, and risk before any account decision.