Net profit
Net profit — Everything you made minus everything you lost, after commission and swap — the bottom line of a period, and the least informative number on the dashboard.
Net profit is the number everybody checks first and the one that carries the least information. It is a single figure standing in for a period of decisions, and it can be identical for an account that ground out a steady edge and one that got lucky twice.
In plain English
Add every winning trade. Add every losing trade. The sum is net profit, and if it is computed properly it is already after commission, swap and any fees — because those are money that genuinely left the account, and a "profit" figure that excludes them is a marketing number rather than a result.
What must not be in it is deposits and withdrawals. Wiring money in is not a trading result, and any figure that folds it into performance is describing your bank transfers. This sounds obvious and is one of the most common errors in home-made spreadsheets, because MT4 writes balance operations as rows in the same table as trades.
Its weakness is that it is a total, and totals discard order, size and risk. Two accounts finishing the period up 3,600 tell you nothing about which of them risked 0.5% a trade and which risked 8%, or which was 30% down in the middle. That information exists — it is just not in this number.
The formula
Net profit = gross profit + gross loss (gross loss is negative) = Σ(profit + commission + swap + fees) over closed trades
- Closed trades only. Floating P&L on open positions is not a result yet.
- Balance operations excluded — deposits, withdrawals, credits and bonuses are not trading outcomes.
- Costs included, always. A trade that made $3 gross and paid $5 in commission lost you money, and should be counted as a loss.
Net profit divided by the number of trades is expectancy, which is a considerably more useful figure and the one to look at instead.
Worked example — the demo account
The bundled demo account: 96 closed trades between 6 January 2025 and 9 April 2025.
| Gross profit (49 winners) | $11,692.91 | |
|---|---|---|
| Gross loss (47 losers) | −$7,399.46 | |
| Net profit | +$4,293.45 | |
| Of which commission | −$329.04 | already deducted above |
| Per trade | +$44.72 | net ÷ 96 |
+$4,293.45 over 96 trades and 51 trading days.
The per-trade line is the one that carries information. +$44.72 a trade is a real edge, and it is a figure you can multiply by an expected trade count to reason about a future period — which is something the total can never support.
The commission line matters for a different reason: −$329.04 is roughly 8% of the net profit. Doubling the cost of trading would not turn this account negative, but it would take a visible bite. That sensitivity is invisible in the headline and is one of the more useful things to know about a strategy.
Every figure above is from the demo account TapeSheet ships with — 96 closed trades, generated from a fixed seed. Open the same account →
What this does not tell you
The caveat is the part worth reading. Most tools put it in a footer, if they print it at all.
- Nothing about risk taken. The same net profit from 0.5% risk and from 8% risk describes two completely different accounts, and only one of them is repeatable.
- Nothing about the path. A steady climb and a 40% drawdown rescued by one enormous winner produce the same total. Read it beside the equity curve.
- Nothing about concentration. If one trade produced most of it, the figure describes that trade. Removing the best trade from this demo account cuts net profit by about 17%.
- Nothing about sample size. A total from twelve trades and one from twelve hundred are printed identically and mean entirely different things.
Where TapeSheet shows it
The largest tile on the Overview, in the account currency, with gross profit and gross loss beneath it so the total can be decomposed rather than taken on trust. Balance operations are listed separately and never folded in.
Questions
Should net profit include swap?
Yes. Swap is money credited to or debited from your account for holding a position overnight, and on a multi-day position it can exceed the trade’s gross result. Excluding it produces a figure that has never matched anybody’s bank balance. TapeSheet includes commission, swap, taxes and fees in every trade’s net.
Why does my net profit not match my broker’s?
Usually a date-range difference, or balance operations being counted. Brokers often quote the change in balance over a period, which includes deposits and withdrawals; TapeSheet quotes trading results only, and shows deposits separately. Check the period and the deposit total before suspecting the parse.
Is net profit the same as return?
No. Return is net profit as a percentage of the capital used to make it, and that is what allows two accounts of different sizes to be compared at all. A 3,600 profit is excellent on a 10,000 account and unremarkable on a 500,000 one.
Related terms
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