Gains, sometimes called gross profitProfitThe gain or loss on a closed position, once spreads, commissions, and swaps are taken out.Click the word to learn more, is what the winning positions produced before the losing ones take any back. If 40 positions closed in the green for a combined 4,200, gains is 4,200, full stop. Whether the losers gave most of it back is a separate column.
Reporting gains and losses separately matters because the shape of each side is its own story. Two strategies can end the year on the same total profitTotal ProfitThe sum of every closed position result over a period, winners and losers combined.Click the word to learn more and arrive there in completely different ways. One might have produced a few large winners that carried a fleet of small losers. Another might have piled up many small winners that kept ahead of a handful of painful losers. The total at the bottom is the same. The positionPositionA single entry held on the broker account, with a direction, a size, and a current floating result.Click the word to learn more-by-position behavior is not.
Gains is also the numerator of the profit factorProfit FactorGross winning amount divided by gross losing amount over a period. Above 1 means net positive.Click the word to learn more. Divide gains by gross losses and you get a single number that tells you which side weighed more in absolute terms.
Like every historical metric on the platform, gains describes what already happened, on a real account, on a specific period. It is a measurement. It is not a forecast.