Realised vs unrealised profit: separate sold shares from open holdings

Realised profit or loss belongs to the portion of an investment that has been closed. Unrealised profit or loss belongs to a position still held and valued at a selected price. You can have a realised gain and an unrealised loss in the same security at the same time.

Neither number alone describes a complete account return. Cash balances, charges, dividends, deposits, withdrawals, and the reporting period still matter. The delivery-equity examples here exclude leverage and use fictional transactions, with assumptions stated so the arithmetic can be checked.

Start with a partial sale

Buy 100 fictional Harbor Manufacturing shares at ₹200 each. Total purchase value is ₹20,000. Later, sell 40 shares at ₹230, leaving 60 shares. Assume the remaining shares are currently marked at ₹190 and ignore charges initially.

Item	Calculation	Result
Cost of sold shares	40 × ₹200	₹8,000
Sale proceeds	40 × ₹230	₹9,200
Gross realised P&L	₹9,200 − ₹8,000	₹1,200
Cost of remaining shares	60 × ₹200	₹12,000
Current remaining value	60 × ₹190	₹11,400
Gross unrealised P&L	₹11,400 − ₹12,000	−₹600

The combined economic gain on this simplified set of transactions is ₹1,200 − ₹600 = ₹600. Verify independently: sale proceeds of ₹9,200 plus remaining value of ₹11,400 equal ₹20,600, which is ₹600 above the original ₹20,000 outlay.

The current holdings screen may only display the remaining ₹600 loss. That does not erase the earlier realised gain. Equally, the ₹1,200 realised gain does not guarantee the remaining position will recover.

A sale does not create extra profit by changing labels

Immediately before the sale, suppose all 100 shares were marked at ₹230. The unrealised gain would be ₹3,000. Selling 40 shares at exactly that price would transfer ₹1,200 into realised gain and leave ₹1,800 unrealised, before costs.

The combined gain would still be ₹3,000, not ₹4,200. Counting the original unrealised total plus the new realised result double-counts the sold shares. Only the later move from ₹230 to ₹190 on the remaining 60 shares reduces that combined gain by ₹2,400 to ₹600.

Add charges without mixing conventions

Now assume ₹30 in buy-side costs for the original purchase and ₹40 in costs on the sale. For this educational reconciliation only, allocate purchase costs by quantity: ₹12 to the 40 sold shares and ₹18 to the remaining 60.

Net realised P&L becomes ₹9,200 − ₹8,000 − ₹12 − ₹40 = ₹1,148. The remaining unrealised result on a purchase-cost-inclusive basis is ₹11,400 − ₹12,018 = −₹618. Combined, that is ₹530, before future exit costs and income tax.

A second check uses cash and value: ₹9,160 net sale receipts + ₹11,400 marked holdings − ₹20,030 initial outlay = ₹530. This allocation convention is not a claim about the exact presentation in a broker or a tax report. See P&L after charges for definitions and double-counting checks.

Read the specific report, not just the label

With several purchase lots, identifying sold cost requires a matching method. Zerodha describes FIFO for remaining holdings averages. The single-lot example avoids that extra complexity.

Also distinguish delivery holdings from funds-page and derivatives calculations. Zerodha's funds-page explanation concerns trading positions and margin availability; its displayed unrealised figure is not interchangeable with a delivery portfolio's marked gain. Choose the correct segment and period in the P&L report.

What a current tracker cannot infer

Today's open holdings cannot reveal every previously closed trade. HoldingsTracker Pro's current insights do not provide portfolio history, a realised-trades ledger, or tax reporting. Use the worked examples above to distinguish a hypothetical sale from an unrealised position; neither reconstructs completed trades. Use the broker's records for completed transactions, help for product questions, and the snapshot guide for the limits of point-in-time data. HoldingsTracker Pro is independent of Zerodha. This is educational arithmetic, not investment recommendations, tax advice, or a calculation of your taxable gains.