# P&L, orders and activity

> What each figure in Trade means and where it comes from: the Overview tiles, a deployment's Today, Realized gain and Trend, the Trades card, and the Positions, Orders and Activity tabs.

Source: https://orbitalaip.com/docs/trade/pnl-orders-and-activity

> [!IMPORTANT] Disclaimer
> Backtest results are hypothetical and do not predict future performance. Nothing here is investment advice: Orbital computes the rules you supplied and recommends nothing. Orbital is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. Costs are as modelled by the chosen cost profile and may differ from live trading.

## Two kinds of figures

Trade's figures come from two places. Every account and deployment figure is for the account tab you have selected.

The account's figures start from the broker. The **P&L**, **Unrealized P&L** and **Gain** tiles, the **Account value** chart and the **Positions** tiles read Alpaca's balances, positions and account history. They cover everything on the account, whoever traded it.

A deployment's figures come from Orbital's own record of the account's [fills](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#fill). **Today**, **Realized gain** and **Trend** are built from one [deployment](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#deployment)'s fills since it started, and the **Trades** card from every deployment of a strategy on the account.

A figure Trade cannot vouch for shows a dash, never a zero.

## The Overview tiles

| Tile | What it shows |
| --- | --- |
| P&L | The account's result over a period: 1D when you open it, or 1W, 1M, 3M, YTD, 1Y or All. |
| Unrealized P&L | The open P&L on what the account holds. |
| Capital allocated | The budgets of every deployment on the account that has not stopped, in any project, plus the cost of Manual positions, as a share of account value. |
| Gain | The account's result over all available history. |
| Win rate | Not available. |

**P&L** and **Unrealized P&L** each have a **%** and **$** toggle, and the sub-line shows the other unit.

The **P&L** tile's sub-line names its source, and **Gain** names its source in the same words. **broker reported** is the result as Alpaca's history states it. **reconciled estimate** and **live estimate** are Orbital's own: the account's value against a broker baseline, leaving out deposits and withdrawals whose time is known. A percentage is a simple return on the account's value at the start of the period, not a time-weighted one.

**Unrealized P&L** is the account's [open P&L](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#open-pnl). Its percentage is over the cost of the open positions, long and short added as magnitudes.

[Budget in use](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/trade/capital-sleeves#budget-in-use) explains the **Capital allocated** tile.

## The Account value chart

**Account value** charts the account's equity over **1D**, **1W**, **1M**, **3M**, **YTD**, **1Y** or **All**, with the change over the range in dollars and as a percentage.

That change is not P&L. It is the last value in the range minus the first, so a deposit or a withdrawal moves it. The footnote says so: **Percentage change includes cash movements; it is not investment return.** Read P&L from the **P&L** tile.

Under the chart, **Most recently active** lists five strategies, those running on this account first.

## A deployment's own P&L

The **Deployments** drawer shows **Today** and **Realized gain**, and the **Strategies** tab and the **Overview**'s strategies table show **Realized gain** and **Trend**. A strategy's page shows its realized gain as **Gain** under **Where it runs**. Each has a **%** and **$** toggle.

The figures come from the deployment's own fills since it started, and closing one of its positions by hand counts too. A trade runs from flat back to flat in one stock, and exits close the oldest shares first.

- **Realized gain** adds up the result on every closed share.

- **Today** is the change since the close before the current session, open positions included at the broker's current prices. On a day with no session it runs from the close before the last one.

- **Trend** is the running total, open positions marked at each settled close, one point per session since the start. It keeps the last 60 sessions.

In **%**, a figure is a share of the budget in dollars the deployment started with. For a budget set as a percentage, that is its share of the account's equity at the last close before the start.

The figures show a dash while Orbital cannot vouch for them. That happens, for example, while the account's fill record is still catching up, or when the broker holds a different quantity from what the fills add up to. **Today** also needs the broker's current prices, and **Trend** needs two sessions.

A deployment's win rate is not computed.

## The Trades card

A strategy's page, opened from its row on the **Strategies** tab, has a **Trades** card. It lists the strategy's trades on the selected account, from every deployment of it there, stopped ones included. Open trades come first, then closed trades, newest exit first. It is laid out as Backtesting's [trade list](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/backtesting/reading-results#the-trade-log), so the two read alike.

| Column | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Exit · ET | The last exit and the average exit price. An open trade shows its mark at the broker's current price, labelled Marked. |
| Against · for | The trade's MAE and MFE, from daily highs and lows between entry and exit. Only a daily strategy's trades have one, and none spans a split. |
| Return | Net P&L over the cost at entry. |
| Net P&L | The realized result, plus an open trade's gain or loss at its mark. |
| Closed by | The exit reason: Signal, Stop, Target, Trailing, Time, By hand or Open. |

The glossary defines [MAE](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#mae), [MFE](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#mfe), [net P&L](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#net-pnl) and the [exit reason](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/glossary#exit-reason). A protective exit that fires late, after a missed check, reads as **Signal**.

Until every fill on the account is in, the card reads **Trades appear once every fill on this account has come in from the broker.**

## Positions

**Positions** shows **Everything this account holds, and which strategy holds it.** Its four tiles, **Market value**, **Unrealized P&L**, **Cash** and **Account value**, are the broker's figures for the whole account. The **All strategies** picker narrows the table, never the tiles. Under **Prices live · cash reconciled separately**, **Last price**, **Market value** and **Unrealized P&L** move with live prices.

| Column | What it means |
| --- | --- |
| Strategy | The strategy that opened it. Manual is a position from New order or from outside Trade. Another project is a strategy this project cannot see. |
| Shares | The quantity held. A short shows a negative count. |
| Market value | The broker's market value of the position. Negative for a short. |
| Exit plan | The resting exits on it, for instance Stop $181.50 · target $192.00, or a dash with none. |

The footnote states the ownership rule: **Each position belongs to the strategy that opened it. Positions from New order or from outside Trade show as Manual, and no strategy trades them.**

The **×** at the end of a row closes the position in two clicks:

1. **Click ×**
   
   A note says what will be sold at market, or bought back for a short, and about how much it is worth. Any stop or target on it is canceled first, and a strategy that held it won't trade the stock again until you resume it.

2. **Confirm**
   
   Click the button that names the order, for instance **Sell 40 SMCI** or **Buy back 40 SMCI**. **Cancel** backs out.

Nothing is shown as closed until Alpaca confirms the fill. **Close all positions** in the [account menu](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/trade/manage-a-deployment#the-account-menu) does the same for the whole book.

## Orders

**Orders** shows **Manual and strategy orders on this account.** **Open** lists what is working, and **History** what is done in the window you pick: **Last 7 days**, **Last 30 days** or **Last 90 days**. An **All strategies** picker narrows either list to one strategy or to **Manual**.

| Status | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| Held | Waiting for your approval, or held, suspended or stopped by the broker. |
| Sending | On its way to the broker. |
| Working, Part filled | Open at the broker, or partly filled. |
| Filled | Done. |
| Done today | The broker stopped working it for the day. It can still be canceled. |
| Canceling, Replacing | A cancel or a replacement is in progress. |
| Canceled, Expired, Replaced | Ended without filling, or without filling the rest. |
| Rejected | Refused by Orbital, or turned down by the broker. |
| Unconfirmed | Sent, with no confirmed outcome yet. |

Under **Open**, **Why** reads **Waiting for you to approve it** on a held order, and **Take profit**, **Exit if it falls** or **Exit if it rises** on a resting exit. An order Orbital did not send is listed under **History**, where **Note** names the reason, for instance **Over its budget**, **Its strategy is paused** or **Sending was switched off**.

To cancel an open order:

1. **Click × at the end of its row**
   
   A note repeats the order. If it is a position's stop or target, the note says the position would be left without it.

2. **Click Cancel order**
   
   **Keep it** backs out.

Nothing is shown as canceled until Alpaca confirms it. An order still held for your approval has no **×**.

## Activity

**Activity** shows **Orders, pauses and changes, with who or what made them.** Filter it by **All**, **Trades** (orders), **Changes** (everything else, such as deployments, pauses, stops and limit changes) or **Needs attention**, and by strategy. Rows are grouped under **Needs attention**, **Today**, **Yesterday** and earlier dates.

Each row has a time, a title, a detail line and the strategy that caused it. A row with no strategy reads **Manual** when a person acted, and **Account** when anything else did.

Order titles say what was asked. **Sent an order to sell 72 DDOG** is one the broker saw. **Held an order to buy 25 AMD** is one waiting for approval. **Order to buy 2 AAPL** is one that was refused, is still being sent, or has no confirmed outcome. Change titles include **Deployed strategy**, **Paused new trades**, **Stopped strategy** and **Changed limits or permission**.

The detail line starts with the status, such as **Sent**, **Filled**, **Refused** or **Waiting for review**. A refusal adds its reason, such as **Limit open positions** or **Sends disabled**. An order adds **Order price**, the price it asked for, which is not a fill price. Then comes who acted, such as **Placed by the strategy**, and an approved trade adds **Approved by** and the name.

**Needs attention** collects the rows with a question or a problem: a trade waiting for review, a refused or rejected order, a failed change, or an unknown outcome.

A trade held for your approval also appears at the top in a **Waiting for you** card, with **Refuse**, **Manual…** and **Approve…**. See [Answer a held trade](https://orbitalaip.com/docs/trade/approvals-and-permissions#answer-a-held-trade).