If you haven’t done so recently, give our newly improved Profit + Loss Calculator a spin. You can find it under Tools > Profit + Loss Calculator.

We’ve made two key improvements in this bad boy in recent days:

First, the Profit + Loss Calculator now graphs your position's P&L as of today's date and at expiration. Move the "days to expiration" slider and watch the two graphs converge. Two lines instead of one help you see the P&L picture as it stands today, then see how that picture morphs as you near expiration. It’s a present-meets-future view that we think will be super-helpful as you plan your exit strategies.

You can also calculate P&L projections for an individual option leg or for the net sum of all legs. This more detailed view lets you see how each leg is contributing to your strategy’s P&L projections, if you choose; or you can keep things simple and focus on the big P&L picture for your strategy. Check out the screenshot below for a taste of what I mean (or better yet, login to your TK account and check out the actual tool!):



We have even more plans cooking for the Profit + Loss Calculator in 2009 – the long-term goal being tighter integration of this tool with our Options Chains, Order Status and Holdings pages. We want to make it easy as possible for you to check the P&L potential for every trade you’re considering, whether you’re just at the quotes / chains stage, ready to pull the trigger, or already holding a position. Keep one eye peeled for more improvements next year!
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IMPORTANT: The projections or other information generated by TradeKing's tools regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results and are not guarantees of future results. The above calculations do not take into consideration all costs, such as commissions and margin interest which may impact the results shown. It is the user's sole responsibility to select the criteria to enter in the TradeKing's tools, or to choose among the pre-defined screens, and to evaluate the merits and risks associated with the use of the tools before making any investment decisions. TradeKing is not responsible for any losses that occur from such investment decisions.

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I noticed this awhile ago.  Works great.  I also like your research reports.  Market Grader lays everything out for quick and easy review.

Agreed - Bravo to the developers!

Gotta love continous improvement....now if only the market would improve as much as the TK trading platform!

The tool seems to cause my browser to crash.  I'm running the latest stable version of Firefox under Linux.  I will try it under other operating systems and browsers later.

I actually prefer the old tool for the reasons listed below.

1. causes browser (Firefox) to crash 80% of the time. Yes, I prefer Firefox to IE but I can use IE if needed
2. no option to add underlying stock for covered call positions
3. I liked being able to right click and zoom in/out easily

Being able to see the graphs of the net/legs as well as the expiration/time-to-expiration is very helpful, kudos. #1 and #3 aren't as big of a deal but the absence of #2 seems pretty big for a P/L calculator ...

JSX,

Re; item # 2 if you look closely you will see the bid and ask prices of the underlying highlighted in the popup window. Click either one and the stock leg will be added to the tool.

Re; item #3 if you look along the x axis of the chart you will see a + and a -. You can use those to zoom in or out.

Good luck

Thank you for improving this function.  I hope you add current positions and allowing adjustments to be shown in real time.  Also wondering if you can keep last data on close so if I use it on the weekends I can look at positions I may want to trade.  I noticed no data on IBM the other weekend.

Thank you for your work on this.

Thanks golax! I had asked two different TK customer reps and both said there was no option to add the underlying stock ...

Guys, thanks for the excellent feedback on this. I've passed this info to Kevin Corrigan, VP of Project Management, and Brian Overby, who (as our Options Guy) has been providing lots of input on this tool's development. One or both of them may reach out to you guys in the near future for some more detailed info, so we can figure out what's happening here and how to improve matters.

In the meantime, feel free to direct your questions or comments to Brian directly: theoptionsguy@tradeking.com.

Thanks again for the speedy feedback!

Hello All,

Thanks Don for replying on my behalf. YES! Please do keep posting feedback here or sending it via email to me. This Thursday we will be tweaking a lot of the small issues and then I will add my help video. I apologize for not having a help video up that would’ve explained how to enter the stock into the calculator. I will have that done by next week and hopefully have it up soon. We can not reproduce the crashing browser issues mentioned above with Linux or the firefox user. I use firefox personally and I have not had any of the issues mentioned. If it is still happening call the trade desk and ask for me – we will get your crashing issues solved. Going forward this will be integrated with the holding page, order status and chains. This is the next step and I have a few little special adjustments that I am adding. I use this calculator non-stop to teach and trade so there is nobody happier then I about the new tool!

Regards,
Brian Overby (Og)

Pauly B,

The ability to add current positions to the tool I think would be an OUTSTANDING enhancement. Great idea! I currently only write covered calls and so it is not critical for me now, but in the future I hope to be doing more advanced options trading and that functionality would be terrific.

TK Staff,

First let me say that I really do appreciate the continuous improvement. I think the tool is much improved notwithstanding the issues that some users are having. But since we've opened up the enhancement discussion how about this for a list of "would like to haves" (in priority order).

Ability to add current positions to any of the calculators

Ability to flip a position between all the calculators

Ability to flip a position from a screener to any of the calculators

I know that's probably more than you asked for BigDog.

Not at all, golax! This is exactly the kind of feedback we're looking for, so thanks for your input. I know Brian is watching this and other P+L Calculator discussions closely, too, so this will really help his team figure out what to work on next.

Thanks for your kind words about our constant improvement, too - we do our best to keep things rolling forward!

Be Good,
Don

Thanks Golax,

I also have an account at the brokerage with all the bells and whistles for options, you know the one, but I continue to find I am getting better fills on Trade Kings router than theirs! 

Execution,  customer service, and costs are getting more important to me than all the super bells and whistles and Trade King is giving me all three.

Pauly B: Thanks for the shout-out! It’s great to hear you’re happy with TK. Let us know if there’s anything else we can do to keep your experience excellent.

 

Be Good,

Don