Per-Trade P&L Axis (account currency)
The P&L axis expresses each trade's result in account currency (net profit after commission and swap). Reflects the actual dollar impact, so larger positions and later trades weigh more — it is contaminated by position sizing when comparing strategies.
- Computed from
- Data series
- Scope
- Single report
- Range
- Any real number
- Direction
- Context-dependent
Per-trade metrics (Win Rate, Profit Factor, Expectancy, MAE/MFE…) each summarize your individual trades, and a single trade's result can be expressed on four different axes — four units for the same outcome. Picking the axis changes what units the number is in — and sometimes the formula. This page covers the P&L axis and how it relates to the other three.
The P&L axis
net_pnl = profit + commission + swap
- profit
- the raw trade P&L (close vs open, scaled by size)
- commission
- broker commission charged on the trade
- swap
- overnight financing credited or debited
net_pnl (contrast the Return axis, which compounds). Because it's absolute money, a single big trade — or a later trade placed on a larger balance — dominates the picture: ideal for "how much did I actually make", misleading for "how good is the strategy" across different position sizes.This is the only axis that answers "how much money" — real, unarguable, and what traders ultimately care about. It is also the worst axis for comparing strategies or trades of different sizes: a 10-lot trade and a 0.1-lot trade of identical quality look 100× apart on it. P&L is the default axis for most trade metrics — it's the bottom line — but always cross-check a size-neutral axis (Return or Pips%) before judging skill.
The four axes side by side
axis measures applies to ──────── ──────────────────────── ────────────── Return % trade vs account balance any selection P&L $ trade in account currency any selection Pips% price move in bp any (cross-sym) Pips price move in symbol pts single symbol
- Return (%) — size-normalized; a trade's result relative to the balance it risked.
- P&L ($) — the literal money the trade made or lost; reflects position size and account growth.
- Pips% (basis points) —
(close/open − 1) × 10000; the price move itself, comparable across symbols, independent of how much was risked. - Pips (symbol points) — the move in instrument-specific points; only meaningful when a single symbol is selected, since pips aren't comparable across instruments.
Axis vs equity basis — don't conflate them
New here? You can skip this — it's a disambiguation for users coming from the equity charts. A common confusion: "Return" and "P&L" appear in both the equity world and the trade world. They are different dimensions:
| Equity basis | Trade axis | |
|---|---|---|
| Chooses | which cumulative curve | which unit per trade |
| Members | Return, TWR, P&L | Return, P&L, Pips%, Pips |
| TWR? | yes | no |
| Pips? | no | yes |
So "P&L" on a drawdown curve (equity) is the running money balance over time; "P&L" on an Expectancy (trade) is a single trade's net dollar result. Same word, different machinery.