Percentage return
Definition · Level 0 · Market basics
Keep reading with Tradecraft
Without a subscription, you can read three definitions every 30 days. Tradecraft explains all 988 terms and strategies, with the lessons that teach them, flashcards that come back before you forget, quizzes and a payoff lab.
Profit or loss divided by the money you put in, shown as a percent: it lets you compare trades of different sizes.
Example
Buy 100 shares at $20 and sell at $22: $200 on $2,000 = 10%.
Where Tradecraft teaches it
Level 0 · Market basics, in the lesson “Returns, basis points & lots”: Percent, total return and basis points, and the standard order size.
Related terms
- Basis point (bp)One hundredth of one percent: 0.01% = 0.0001.
- Round lot / odd lotThe standard trading unit: 100 shares for most US stocks (since late 2025, 40, 10 or 1 share for stocks above $250, $1,000 or $10,000) / any…
- Total returnPrice change plus income received (dividends, coupons), as a percentage of the starting value: the full measure of what a holding earned.
- 52-week high / all-time highThe highest price over the past year of trading / the highest price ever recorded (split-adjusted).
- Account equityWhat you would keep after selling everything in the account and repaying the loan: market value minus what you owe.
- ADVAverage daily volume: the typical number of shares traded per day over a lookback window (often 20 or 30 days), the yardstick for how big an order…