Reading Your Portfolio: Cost Basis, P&L and ROI

Your portfolio page answers one question: am I actually making money? It sounds simple, but getting a truthful answer requires knowing what your positions cost, what they are worth now, and which part of the difference you have actually banked. This guide explains how Predite computes each number so you can trust what you are reading.

Cost basis: what your shares cost you

Predite tracks cost basis using the weighted-average method. For each outcome you hold:

When you sell part of a position, the sale reduces your holding at the average cost of the shares you held — not at the price you sold for. This keeps your average entry price stable when you trim, which is what you want: selling half a winner should not distort what the remaining half cost you.

A worked example. You buy 100 shares of YES at 40¢, then add 100 more at 60¢:

Now you sell 50 shares at 70¢. Your remaining 150 shares still carry an average of 50¢, and your remaining cost basis is $75. The $10 profit on the sold shares is realized; the rest is still riding.

This is deliberately not FIFO or LIFO lot matching. Those methods answer "which specific shares did I sell?" — a question that matters for some tax regimes but not for the practical question of what your current holding cost you.

The numbers on the page

For each position you see:

And rolled up across everything: total cost, total unrealized P&L, and overall ROI. Position data comes from Polymarket, so your average reflects your real on-chain fills rather than an estimate.

Unrealized versus realized — do not confuse them

This trips up more traders than any other part of portfolio reading.

Unrealized P&L is what your open positions would be worth if you closed them right now at the current price. It is real information, but it is not money you have. It moves every time the market moves, and in a thin book the "current price" may not be a price you could actually get for your whole position.

Realized P&L is what you actually banked on positions you have already closed or that have resolved. This is the number that pays your rent.

A portfolio showing +$400 unrealized and −$100 realized is not a winning portfolio yet. It is a portfolio with an opinion. Judge yourself on realized results over a meaningful sample; use unrealized to manage risk, not to feel good.

Why your ROI can look strange

A few honest caveats worth understanding:

Getting the full record

The portfolio shows open positions and unrealized results. For the complete history — every closed trade across your bots, copy trades, and manual orders, with realized P&L rolled up by month — export it from the same page. That export is also what you use at tax time; see Tax Reporting and Records.

A weekly routine

1. Check total unrealized P&L and ROI — is your exposure where you intended?
2. Scan for positions whose thesis has changed but whose stop has not, and adjust (see Protecting Positions).
3. Look at realized results for the week, not unrealized. That is your actual scoreboard.
4. Export and log anything that closed, so your journal stays current.

Good to know