What is unrealised profit and loss?

Unrealised profit or loss reflects how a position you’re still holding is currently performing, calculated as the difference between the current market price and your average buy price, multiplied by the quantity you hold, but it’s a paper figure only, not money that’s actually in your account yet. It updates continuously as the market price moves throughout the trading day, and it can flip from a gain to a loss (or vice versa) multiple times before you actually decide to sell and lock in a realised result. This number is useful for tracking how your current holdings are doing at a glance, but it shouldn’t be confused with actual account balance or withdrawable funds, since nothing has actually been converted to cash yet. You check unrealised P&L regularly to monitor open positions, but you focus on realised P&L, and specifically the contract note and ledger, when you’re actually assessing your true trading performance or preparing for tax filing.