Interactive Brokers question

Investing / Brokers
1

Can someone explain me some values on this image?

image
f91d2160cfca06c69926d767eebd266138e02b00.png1275×875 149 KB

  • What is the Total USD Unrealized P&L? I thought it was the sum of all P&L but it doesn’t add up. Not even the two usd positions alone.
  • I can’t see an easy way to see how much in total I made with the whole portoflio, other than knowing it had 500,000 usd in it and it has now 499,438 usd.
  • Where are ~500 dollars gone?
  • 499,437 in one point, 499,438 in another. ?
  • I don’t understand why there is Position and Portfolio. They seem to repeat some of the info, and some other are just trades.

That page seems a bit counterintuitive :frowning:

2

that’s easy. you have 50’000 CHF, so the Total in USD will vary depending on current exchange rate.

3

Well, they are on the same page. I suppose taken at the same time, so they should be the same.

4

I feel the same way right now. Very interested about the answers here.

5
  • Unrealized P&L: Running total of the profit that have yet to be sold.
  • Under “Market Value” you can see Total > Unrealized P&L
  • Missing 500: potentially one of the fees you have faced transfering / trading?
  • Bojack answered
  • I’m sure there’s uses I’m not aware of (I mostly just use the mobile app) but the Portfolio seems to provide the overall value, while Positions tracks each stock in detail / more info.

Bit late for this piece of advice, but I would always experiment with small amounts of cash before throwing a ton in there. Just to get your head around the UI and features.

6

Thanks for your answers, but I think you missed the fact that the P&L does not add up. Also note that it’s a test account, I don’t have 500000usd to play with :slight_smile:
The 500usd shouldn’t be a fee, since I just bought VT , VTI and some CHF. It must be a fee though, otherwise we would see it somewhere there, either -500 p&l or another position.

I’d be fired if I create a GUI with inconsistent data like that…

7

Oh I thought you meant that this values changes in time. You know, maybe the developers used a round in one field, and a floor/trunc in the other :stuck_out_tongue:

Did you check the WebTrader guide?

Link

I find it quite funny that you didn’t notice that this is a demo account. :wink:

1 Like
8

I did check the guide, but it doesn’t say much about it. That 28usd is bugging me. It does not make sense at all and I don’t know what it means.

9

Yeah. My initial reaction was “NICE! 500K to toy around with!”

10

I tried again with TWS and it’s even more difficult to understand. First the demo doesn’t give you a rounded number. instead I have 1million and 6123 something dollars. Weird.
Even there is not clear.

(75.91-75.83)*300 should give 25.50 according to my screenshot.
25.50 + 5 -13.75 should give 28

puzzling.

11

What’s difficult for me to understand is why the heck are you bothering with TWS. Are you learning to become a day trader or something? Cause that’s the primary audience for that tool. For everyone else they also offer a couple other much simpler UIs

12

Well…since no one answered me, I tried to understand if it’s a problem with the web version.

I think the issue about the weird p&l is that the general one (28) is calculated differently (every night?) so it doesn’t make sense on the demo version. Still puzzled. Google didn’t help me find a solution to it, since those sums are so “straightforward” that no one bother explaining them.

13

Well there you have it. A probable answer is that the total P&L is EOD and the P&L for each position is live. Anyway, who cares? Do you think they have it all wrong and are hence unreliable?

14

ahah no.
It’s just that I want to understand what I do, usually. The best way is to get a confirmation of my actions by checking values here and there.

All in all it’s not that bad. Maybe some GUI guru will complain because values are mixed but if my suspects are correct, it’s not a big deal once there is a running portfolio.