Profit Table

A profit table is a way of laying out, in rows and columns, how much money a trading position or strategy would gain or lose at different prices or at different points in time. Instead of drawing a picture of the outcome, it lists it as numbers you can scan and check.

It is most commonly used with options positions, where the payoff isn't a simple straight line. A trader picks a range of possible prices for the underlying asset (the stock, index, or futures contract the option is based on) and, for each one, calculates the profit or loss the position would show, often at several different dates before expiration. Each row might be a price, each column a date, with the resulting profit or loss filling the grid.

The nuance that trips people up is that a profit table is a snapshot of *theoretical* outcomes based on a pricing model, not a guarantee. It usually assumes things like constant volatility and no changes in interest rates, which rarely hold exactly in the real market. It's the same information as a profit graph — a chart plotting profit or loss against price — just in numeric form instead of a visual curve; some traders prefer the table because it gives exact figures rather than a line to eyeball.

Profit tables are mainly a planning and analysis tool used before or while holding a position, not something that appears live on most trading platforms during the trading day.