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Futures profit and loss calculator

Gross profit is easy; the number that reaches your account is not. Enter entry, exit, contract size and commission to get the exact result, the move in points and ticks, and what the trade cost you in fees.

The closed trade

Result

Net profit — —
Gross profit / loss—
Total commission—
Commission as a share of gross—
Move in points—
Move in ticks—
Value of one tick—
Result per contract—
Return on margin posted—
Notional value at entry—

The move is not the result

A trade can move 45 points in your favour and still lose money. That is not a paradox or a rare edge case; it is routine on short-hold futures positions where the market move is only a few times the round-turn cost. The chart tells you what the market did. Your statement tells you what you got.

Gross = (Exit − Entry) × Multiplier × Contracts   (long)
Net = Gross − Commission per side × 2 × Contracts
Return on margin = Net ÷ (Margin per contract × Contracts)

Why commission dominates small moves

Commission is a fixed cost per contract per side, so it is proportional to the number of contracts and independent of the size of the move. That combination produces a simple and unforgiving rule: as the average move per trade shrinks, the fraction of it consumed by commission rises.

Expressed in ticks, the picture is immediate. If round-turn cost is one tick's worth of value, a system whose average winning trade is three ticks wide is paying out a third of its gross edge in fees. A system averaging thirty ticks is paying three percent. Same strategy logic, radically different economics.

This is why the tick value calculation matters before the backtest, not after. It converts a vague concern about costs into a specific hurdle the edge must clear.

Return on margin shows the leverage you actually took

Futures positions are collateralised rather than paid for, so the appropriate denominator for a percentage return is the margin posted, not the notional value. A 45-point move on a contract with a multiplier of 10 and margin of 4,000 per contract is 450 of gross profit against 4,000 of collateral, which is 11.25 percent before costs — on a move of roughly 1.4 percent in the underlying.

Reporting the result this way is not bragging about leverage; it is measuring it. The same ratio works in reverse, and the number that makes a modest move look impressive is the same number that makes a modest adverse move expensive.

Notional value is still worth looking at

Return on margin is the right measure of capital efficiency, but notional value is the right measure of exposure. A position with a small margin requirement relative to its notional value is a leveraged position, and the leverage is what turns a contained stop into a large loss if the market gaps through it.

Both figures are reported here because they answer different questions. Margin answers “how much capital did this tie up”; notional answers “how much market exposure did I take on”.

Reading your own trade history correctly

What this calculator deliberately leaves out

Slippage, financing and exchange fees other than the commission you enter are not modelled, because they depend on your broker, your order types and the market conditions at the moment of the fill. The way to include them is to enter the prices at which you were actually filled and the all-in fee your broker charges per side. The arithmetic stays the same; the inputs get more honest.

Frequently asked questions

How do I calculate profit and loss on a futures trade?
Multiply the price difference by the contract multiplier and the number of contracts, then subtract commission on both sides. For a long trade the difference is exit minus entry; for a short trade it is entry minus exit. The result is the net cash change in your account.
Does the contract multiplier affect profit and loss?
It determines it. Two traders taking the identical 20-point move on contracts with different multipliers make different amounts of money. Multipliers range from single digits to the hundreds depending on the product, so the same chart move can be worth 100 or 10,000 depending on which contract you traded.
How is commission charged in futures?
Usually a fixed amount per contract per side, so a round turn costs twice the quoted rate per contract. Some brokers quote all-in round-turn rates instead. The total on a trade is the per-side rate multiplied by two and by the number of contracts, and for short-term strategies it is frequently larger than the market move.
Why is my net profit lower than the point move suggests?
Because commission is charged on both the entry and the exit and is not proportional to the size of the move. On a small move, or a position held only briefly, fees can consume a large share of the gross profit and occasionally turn a gross gain into a net loss.
What is return on margin and why does it matter?
It is the net result divided by the collateral the position required. Futures is a margined instrument, so a modest percentage move in the underlying can be a large percentage return on the capital actually committed. Measuring return this way shows the leverage in the position, which is the same thing that makes losses on margin expensive.
How do I convert the move into ticks?
Divide the price change by the contract's tick size. Ticks are the natural unit for futures because orders can only be placed at multiples of the tick, so a move expressed in ticks is directly comparable across contracts and is always a valid order distance.
Does this include slippage?
No. It computes the result on the prices you enter. To see the effect of slippage, enter your fill prices rather than the prices at which you intended to trade, or subtract an estimated slippage per side from the entry and add it to the exit.
Should I measure results net or gross?
Net, always. Gross figures are useful for studying whether a signal has predictive value, but they are not the number that compounds in your account. A strategy evaluated on gross results will look viable in precisely the regime where commission matters most - high frequency and small average moves.

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Futures position size calculatorWork out how many contracts your risk budget actually allows, how much margin that position ties up, and where 1R, 2R and 3R sit. Futures margin calculatorMargin in futures is set by the exchange, not by a broker's leverage ratio — and it changes when volatility changes. Tick value calculatorEvery futures contract has its own tick size and its own multiplier, and therefore its own tick value — the cash one minimum price move is worth. Risk reward calculatorA risk-reward ratio on its own says nothing. Max drawdown calculatorMaximum drawdown is the number that decides whether a profitable system is tradeable.