market price on the blotter or in account window is showing the closing regular session price not the current premarket or afterhour market price. if a stock is down in the afterhr session and you go short eg three pts down from the close you will show in the account window immediately a loss of $300/ 100share because the calculation is assuming that the position will be liquidated at the regular market closing price. in the premarket and aftermarket session profit/loss are being calculated off the regular hr. closing price not the current market place. in the account window .there are likely to be margin issues if positions are large enough
Does it have to be either/or? One of my brokers allows you to choose whether the positions window shows current or end-of-day values based on whether you check a box or not.
I do a lot of ah trading with IB, and it's extremely annoying to drag out the calculator every night to see where I'm at. I have no idea why they switched from current mkt to closing mkt prices. Would love to hear an explanation from someone.
Schwab StreetSmartPro (which is a stripped-down version of the Cybertrader platform) lets you choose, by ticking a check box, whether the p/l display should use extended hours prices or closing prices.