Total P&L is the money a symbol or a single position made or lost over a backtest — its trading result after costs, plus the dividends it received — reported in the account's currency. The Positions tables show it as the final column, "Total P&L", after Gross, Costs, Net and Dividends, both in the "By symbol" table and in the per-symbol position rows underneath it. Because it is an amount of money rather than a rate, Total P&L tells you the size of a result but not how efficiently the capital was used.
Also seen as: total PnL, profit and loss, P/L
How does Total P&L differ from total return?
Total P&L is a money amount for one symbol or position; total return is a percentage for the whole strategy. This column was previously labelled "Total return" as well — the same wording used for the percentage on the metrics page — and was renamed to Total P&L so the two can never be confused. Reading a Positions row, "Total P&L 1,245" means that symbol contributed 1,245 of currency to the run. Reading the metrics table, "Total return (%) 40.0" means the whole strategy finished 40% above the value it started with. One is per-instrument and in money, the other is per-strategy and in percent, so they are never two views of the same number and never add up to each other.
What the Total P&L column adds up
Total P&L is the last of five money columns that build the result up step by step.
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Gross | the position's trading gain or loss before any costs |
| Costs | the trading fees and slippage charged to it |
| Net | Gross minus Costs — the trading result after costs |
| Dividends | the dividends the position received while it was held |
| Total P&L | Net plus Dividends — the position's whole result |
In words: start from the raw trading gain, subtract what it cost to trade, then add the income the holding paid you. The five columns are identical in the "By symbol" table and in the per-symbol position rows — the first summarises every position in one symbol, the second breaks that symbol down position by position.
Defaults in Fincanva
- Total P&L is money in the account's base currency, formatted like the other P&L columns and coloured by sign; a negative value is a loss.
- What lands in the Costs column, and therefore in Total P&L, follows the run's simulation assumptions — with Costs & interests off, no trading costs are deducted.
- Dividends are the realized dividend income of the position, so a symbol that pays none has a Total P&L equal to its Net.
- The whole-strategy version of this money view is not this column but the P&L breakdown, whose net "Portfolio" line traces the strategy's total P&L across the period.
- Positions that are still open at the end of the run carry a mark-to-market result, so part of a Total P&L can be unrealized — see realized vs open P&L.
Worked example
A position in one symbol closes with a gross trading gain of 1,200. Fees and slippage charged to it come to 45, so Net is 1,200 − 45 = 1,155. While it was held, the symbol paid 90 of dividends. Total P&L is therefore 1,155 + 90 = 1,245 — the price gain plus the income, minus what the trading cost. Notice what the figure does not say: 1,245 is money, so whether it is a large result depends on how much capital the position tied up and for how long, which the percentage figures on the metrics page answer instead.
Total P&L describes what a strategy would have done on historical data, not what it will do. Fincanva provides no financial advice — see Is this financial advice?.
Where this term is used
Generated · 0 pagesThe pages that reference this term — so a term page is somewhere you pass through, not somewhere you land and stop.
Fincanva provides no financial advice. Backtests show what would have happened — not what will.
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