How to Read Your Broker Statement: Trades, Fees, Cash and Positions

Broker statements are dense, and every broker formats them differently. But most contain the same building blocks. Knowing where to look helps you verify your trades, spot fees and keep your journal accurate.

The main sections

Account summary

Opening and closing account value, deposits and withdrawals, and the change in value for the period. Remember that the change in value includes deposits, so it is not the same as your trading result. See cash flow in a trading account.

Positions

Open positions at the end of the period: quantity, cost basis, market value and unrealized gain or loss. For options, check the expiration dates; for futures, the contract months.

Trades or activity

Every execution: date, time, symbol, side, quantity, price, commission and fees. This is the section your journal imports.

Cash activity

Dividends, interest, fees, margin interest, transfers and, where relevant, financing charges and funding payments.

Realized gains and losses

Some statements, and the year-end tax forms, show realized gains and losses by lot, with short-term and long-term separated and wash sale adjustments noted. See the wash sale rule.

Things that often confuse traders

• Trade date vs settlement date. US stocks now settle one business day after the trade date (T+1).
• Gross vs net. Some statements show trades before fees and list fees separately.
• Corporate actions. Splits and symbol changes can make positions appear to change size or name.
• Multi-currency accounts. Values may be shown in each currency and in a base currency.
• Options expirations, which may appear as a closing trade at zero.

Reconcile with your journal

Once a month:

1. Compare the number of trades and total commissions in your journal with the statement.
2. Compare realized P&L for the month.
3. Check that deposits, withdrawals and dividends are recorded.

Differences usually mean a missing import, a fee not attached to a trade, or a corporate action.

In TradeThink

When you import from your broker, TradeThink reads trades, fees and cash movements, groups executions into trades and shows deposits, withdrawals, dividends and fees on the transactions page. The import guides list which report to download from each broker. Related: importing trades from CSV.