Investing P&L Holdings Kite

Day's P&L on Holdings: how Kite calculates it

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The Day’s P&L column on the Kite Holdings tab shows the unrealised profit or loss generated by today’s price movement on each scrip you hold. It is not the all-time profit (that is Overall P&L), but specifically the profit / loss attributable to today’s tick changes.

Formula

For each holding row:

Day’s P&L = (LTP - Previous close) x Qty

Where:

  • LTP is the live last-traded price.
  • Previous close is the official close from the previous trading day’s bhav copy (adjusted for any same-day corporate action).
  • Qty is the total holding quantity (including T1 if applicable).

The portfolio-wide Day’s P&L is the sum across all rows.

Why it differs from “(LTP - Avg cost) x Qty”

The “(LTP - Avg cost) x Qty” formula is the Overall P&L (unrealised gain since acquisition). The Day’s P&L isolates today’s movement, anchored to yesterday’s close rather than to the original acquisition price.

A scrip with:

  • Avg cost: Rs 1,000
  • Previous close: Rs 1,200
  • Today’s LTP: Rs 1,250
  • Qty: 100

Day’s P&L = (1,250 - 1,200) x 100 = Rs 5,000.

Overall P&L = (1,250 - 1,000) x 100 = Rs 25,000.

The Day’s P&L is just the slice attributable to today.

Edge cases

Ex-date for a dividend or bonus

On the ex-date for a corporate action, the previous-close is officially adjusted. For a Rs 20 dividend on a Rs 1,000 stock:

  • Pre-action previous close: Rs 1,000.
  • Adjusted previous close (ex-date): Rs 980.

The Day’s P&L on the ex-date uses the adjusted previous close. If today’s LTP is also Rs 980 (a flat day post-adjustment), Day’s P&L = 0. Without the adjustment, it would have looked like -Rs 20 x Qty.

The Rs 20 per share cash credit (the dividend) appears separately in the user’s funds account on or around the dividend payment date .

Buy / sell during today

If you bought new shares of an existing holding today, the Day’s P&L includes the new lot. The new lot’s “previous close” doesn’t really exist (you bought today, not yesterday); the calculation uses the price at the moment of the buy as the reference.

Some Kite builds may show this as a transient anomaly until the next overnight settlement, where the new lot’s previous close is set to today’s official close.

T1 holdings

T1 quantities (buys still in T+1 settlement) are included in the displayed Qty. The Day’s P&L on T1 quantities uses the price at the buy (since they have no prior previous close).

Sold today

If you sold all or part of a holding today, the realised P&L from the sale appears separately on the Positions tab , not in Day’s P&L. Day’s P&L on Holdings continues to track the residual position only.

P&L change after market close

After 15:30, the Day’s P&L column may continue to change briefly. See P&L change after 3:30 PM . Causes:

  • Bhav copy publishing (which may slightly adjust the previous close used by Kite).
  • Late corporate action effective dates.
  • Post-market system updates.

Stale Day’s P&L outside market hours

Outside market hours (15:30 to 09:15 next day), Day’s P&L is fixed at: Day’s P&L = (Today’s close - Today’s previous close) x Qty.

This value remains static until the next session opens, when the previous close becomes today’s close and the calculation resets.

Day’s P&L on weekly cycles (special situations)

For a stock that has a weekend or holiday between two trading sessions, today’s “previous close” is Friday’s close (or the last trading day’s close). The 3-day gap can produce a larger absolute Day’s P&L than a normal session.

Day’s P&L vs Day’s Change column on the marketwatch

MetricWhere
Day’s P&L on HoldingsHoldings row; the rupee impact on your position
Day’s change on marketwatchMarketwatch row; the move in INR or percent from previous close

Day’s P&L is “Day’s change x Qty” essentially. Same idea, different presentation.

See also

External references

References

  1. Zerodha Support, Day’s P&L and Overall P&L on Holdings, support.zerodha.com.
  2. NSE India, Previous close and corporate-action adjustment methodology, nseindia.com.
  3. SEBI (LODR) Regulations, 2015, schedule III.

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