Is IB unrealised P&L right?

Investing / Brokers
1

Hi, i saw many other posts of people complaining about this, but I still haven’t fully understood whether it’s correct or not.
As far as I understood the unrealised p&l represents the profit I would make if I had to liquidate everything. I have deposited a total of 34100chf (I even doubled checked all the transactions to be sure), so if I were to sell everything (36808chf) I should make a profit of ~2708chf.

But the value is instead 1593, more than a 1000 short.

Can anyone help me make sense of this?

Thanks in advance, have a wonderful night!

IMG_9549
IMG_95491179×1529 176 KB

2

The P&L for VT is calculated in USD and shown in CHF at the current exchange rate.

5 Likes
3

If you add the column for the average price, you should be able to compute ( 'Last' - 'Avg Price' ) x 'Position' = 'Unrealized P&L', which should match your number. Pretty straightforward, but maybe not what you were looking for.

The net liquidation value on the other hand includes everything in your account, including the cash you have. Cash is not part of the unrealized P&L calculation, so right there you get a difference of 258.65 vs. what you calculated. Also, if you ever sold some stock, had transaction fees or margin loan interest, it will affect this calculation as well.

3 Likes
4

The CHF 1000 difference is probably currency gains. If CHF-to-USD lost as little as 2.7% in your time frame, that would explain it.

By buying and holding VT (US stocks), you held USD. You bet that a) VT would improve and b) USD would improve against CHF. You made 2708 CHF profit. Of those 1593 CHF is from VT gaining value, and 1000 CHF is from USD appreciating against CHF.

2 Likes
5

Ah this makes much more sense now.

Thanks everyone for the replies!

6

good morning everyone, I’m connecting to this post to ask you a question. Is it possible that I have negative performance specifically at -1.5% but the unrealized P&L is positive by 2k? I checked and indeed the total of the payments made minus the current value of the portfolio is negative but then how is it possible that the P&L is positive?

7

@Zardack Did you make any withdrawals recently? That could help explain the difference you’re seeing.

  • Unrealized P&L only considers the difference between the purchase price of positions still in your portfolio and their current value, but it doesn’t account for other factors like withdrawals or deposits in the account.

  • Overall portfolio performance, on the other hand, considers all cash movements (deposits/withdrawals) and the past values of the portfolio.

8

I have only made deposits and no withdrawals, so I can’t understand this, what could be the reason?

9

Yes, as P/L will be in the currency of the securities bought.

So you can have a big plus there, but due to CHF apreciation can be in minus.

My real plus in CHF is also a lot lower than the P/L that IB shows. And currency exchange rate is the reason for that.

1 Like
10

IB shows me +2k of P&L already converted to CHF, probably there is something I’m missing

11

It converts your unrealized gains number in USD to CHF.

Say you have 110K USD, with 10K USD unrealized p/l

110K being worth 110K CHF at the beginning

But now 110K is worth 100K in CHF.

You STILL have your 10K unrealized USD p/l, being worth 9K CHF

So your portfolio value will show 100K CHF with 9K unrealized gains. But in reality you have 0 gains (calculated in CHF for total portfolio).

I track my portfolio in a separate spreadsheet for that reason, with googlefinance formulas for the positions.
Tracking how much you paid in vs. current portfolio value is the only way to know your true gains/losses in CHF.

4 Likes
12

There is a calculation on IB called NAV bridge. Maybe that can be useful for this analysis. Right?

1 Like
13

perfect everything clear thank you very much

1 Like