P&L, short for profit and loss, is how much money a trade or account has made or lost. Unrealized P&L is the paper gain or loss on positions you still hold; realized P&L is locked in once you close them. It's the simplest scoreboard for how your trading is actually doing.
You buy 100 shares at $20 ($2,000). The price rises to $23, so your unrealized P&L is +$300 while you keep holding. Sell all 100 at $23 and that $300 becomes realized P&L, an actual gain booked to your account balance. If the price had dropped to $18 instead, you'd be sitting on −$200 of unrealized P&L until you decided to sell.
P&L is the plainest answer to how you're doing. It rolls every gain and loss into one number, so it's the scoreboard most traders check first. The subtlety worth learning early is the split between unrealized, still open and still moving, and realized, closed and locked in, because an open gain can fade before you ever book it. Watching both columns on a paper-trading simulator, where the numbers are virtual, builds the habit of tracking performance honestly. JagSim doesn't give buy or sell recommendations, price targets, or investment advice.
Counting unrealized gains as money in the bank. A profit on an open position can shrink or flip before you close it. It isn't yours until you actually sell and realize it.
Only looking at the dollar figure. A 500 dollar gain means something very different on a small position than on a large one. The percentage tells you more about how a trade really went than the raw number does.
Forgetting that costs eat into it. In a real account, spreads, fees, and taxes shrink the P&L you actually keep. A gross number on the screen isn't the same as what lands in your pocket.
Unrealized P&L is the paper gain or loss on positions you still hold, and it changes with every price move. Realized P&L is locked in the moment you close the position.
Yes. P&L measures the gain or loss on your trades regardless of whether you've taken any cash out. It's a performance figure, not a withdrawal record.
That's an unrealized loss on an open position. It reflects the current price against what you paid, and it can move back toward green or deeper into red until you close the trade.
Last updated: July 2026
Educational only. Not investment advice. JagSim is a simulator, not a broker.