Skip to content

Your End-of-Day Statement

Learning objectives

After reading this page you will be able to:

  • Read your daily statement from top to bottom and explain every line
  • Say, in your own words, what position, closing price, profit and loss, settlement and balance mean
  • Work out for yourself whether your statement is right
  • Know what to do if you think it is wrong

No finance background is needed. Every word is explained here.

What the statement is

When the market closes for the day, the exchange adds up how each trader did and writes you a short statement, like the one your bank sends you. It tells you three things:

  1. How much you gained or lost today — and so whether you owe the exchange or the exchange owes you.
  2. What you still hold when the market closed.
  3. Every trade you made that day.

The money is fictional: your instructor decides what the numbers mean (points, pretend dollars, a class competition). Nothing real is paid.

Your instructor gives you the statement as a file (usually statements/<your gateway name>.md) or by email.

An example, line by line

Here is the statement of a trader called Bob for Tuesday 3 November 2026:

# Statement for 2026-11-03

Bob Berg (GW_BOB) <bob@example.org>

**You owe the exchange 20.00.**

- Today's result: -20.00
- Balance after today: -20.00

## Result by symbol

| Symbol | Result |
|---|---:|
| AAPL | -20.00 |

## Open positions at the close

| Symbol | Quantity | Closing price |
|---|---:|---:|
| AAPL | -150 | 10.20 |

## Trades

| Time (UTC) | Symbol | Side | Quantity | Price |
|---|---|---|---:|---:|
| 10:30:01 | AAPL | SELL | 50 | 10.20 |

The heading and your name

Statement for 2026-11-03 is the trading date — the day this statement is about. GW_BOB is your gateway, the name your trading program connects with. If your name is not listed, the statement shows only the gateway name and adds "This gateway is not in the roster" — tell your instructor.

The headline sentence

There are exactly three possible sentences:

It says It means
The exchange owes you 30.00. You gained 30.00 today. Think of it as 30.00 added to your account.
You owe the exchange 30.00. You lost 30.00 today. 30.00 is taken from your account.
Nothing to pay or receive today. Your gain for the day was exactly zero — which is also what you get if you took no part in the market and held nothing.

Today's result and your balance

  • Today's result is the same number as the headline, with a sign: positive means you gained, negative means you lost.
  • Balance after today is the running total of all your daily results since the start, plus any starting amount your instructor gave you (your opening balance). It can be negative; a negative balance simply means you are down overall. It does not stop you trading.

Result by symbol

A symbol is the short code of one company's shares (AAPL). If you hold or traded several, this table shows how much of today's result came from each. A symbol you no longer hold, did not trade today and made nothing on today is not listed. Each line is rounded to two decimals on its own, so the lines can add up to 0.01 more or less than Today's result; the result is the number that counts.

Open positions at the close

Your position is how many shares you hold in a symbol.

  • A positive number means you own that many shares (you are long). You gain when the price rises.
  • A negative number means you have sold shares you did not own (you are short). You gain when the price falls. Bob's -150 means he is short 150.
  • If a symbol is missing, you hold none of it.

The closing price is the price of the last trade of the day in that symbol. It is the price the exchange uses to put a value on what you hold overnight (this is called marking to market).

Trades

Each line is one trade you made: the time (in UTC, a worldwide reference time that may differ from your local clock), the symbol, whether you bought (BUY) or sold (SELL) — or SELF if both sides of the trade were yours — how many shares, and at what price.

Where today's number comes from

Your result is the change in the value of your account since the previous trading day's close (on a Monday, that is usually Friday's). Two kinds of profit go into it:

  • Unrealized profit or loss — on paper, for shares you still hold. If you bought 100 shares at 10.00 and the closing price is 10.50, you are 100 × 0.50 = 50.00 up on paper.
  • Realized profit or loss — locked in because you closed part of a position. Buy at 10.00, later sell at 10.30: you realized 0.30 per share.

Add both together and subtract what the total was at the previous close. That difference is today's result.

Check Bob's number yourself

On Monday Bob sold 100 shares he did not own at 10.00, and the day closed at 10.00, so he was neither up nor down. Today he sold 50 more at 10.20, so his average sale price is (100 × 10.00 + 50 × 10.20) ÷ 150 = 10.0667.

  • At today's closing price of 10.20 he is short 150, so on paper he has lost 150 × (10.20 − 10.0667) = 20.00. (A short position loses when the price is above what you sold at.)
  • At the previous close he was 0.00 down.
  • Today he is 20.00 down instead of 0.00 — a change of −20.00. That is exactly the 20.00 the statement says he owes the exchange.

His balance is −20.00 because this is his first non-zero day. If the price falls back tomorrow, tomorrow's result is positive and gives some of it back.

Everyone's results add up to exactly zero: whatever one trader gains, another loses. If a statement says you gained, someone else's says they lost the same amount.

Questions

Why was I paid even though I did not sell anything? Because you hold shares and their price rose. Your holdings are re-valued every day, and you settle the change. If the price falls back tomorrow, tomorrow's result is negative and takes it back.

I did nothing today, so why is my result not zero? Because the market moved while you held a position. Doing nothing while holding shares is still a bet on the price.

Does a negative balance mean I am out of the game? No. It has no effect on whether you can trade.

The price on my statement has two decimals — is that all of it? Prices are shown with the precision of the symbol (two decimals for most symbols). Amounts of money always have two decimals.

My statement looks wrong. What now? Tell your instructor which line you doubt. They can re-calculate without changing anything (pm-eod run --date <date> --dry-run) and show you the closing positions (pm-clearing-cli snapshots --date <date>) and your trades (pm-clearing-cli trades --gateway <your gateway>). If a mistake is found, the day is re-done and a corrected statement is written.

Words used on this page

Word Meaning
Share A small slice of ownership in a company
Symbol The short code for a company's shares, such as AAPL
Trade A buyer and a seller agreeing on a price and a quantity
Gateway The connection your trading program uses; it has a name such as GW_BOB
Position How many shares you hold (negative = short)
Long / short Holding shares / having sold shares you do not own
Closing price The price of the last trade of the day
Marking to market Valuing what you hold at the latest market price
Unrealized P&L Profit or loss on paper, on shares you still hold
Realized P&L Profit or loss locked in by closing a position
P&L "Profit and Loss"
Settlement Turning each trader's gain or loss for the day into an amount to pay or receive
Balance Your running total of daily results plus your opening balance
Trading date The calendar date, in the exchange's own timezone, of the trading day

For the full mechanics see Positions and P&L. How the exchange produces this statement is described in the operator's chapter Closing the Day.