In investment banking, PnL Explained (also called P&L Explain, P&L Attribution or Profit and Loss Explained) is an income statement with commentary that attributes or explains the daily fluctuation in the value of a portfolio of trades to the root causes of the changes. The report is produced by product control; and is used by traders – especially desks dealing in derivatives (swaps and options) and interest rate products. P&L is the day-over-day change in the value of a portfolio of trades typically calculated using the following formula: PnL = Value today - Value from Prior Day Report A PnL Explained Report will usually contain one row per trade or group of trades and will have at a minimum these columns:200 Column 1: PnL - This is the PnL as calculated outside of the PnL Explained report Column 2: PnL Explained - This is the sum of the explanatory columns Column 3: PnL Unexplained - This is calculated as PnL minus PnL Explained (i.e., Column 1 - Column 2) Column 4: Impact of Time - This is the PnL due to the change in time. Column 5: Impact of Prices - This is the change in the value of a portfolio due to changes in commodity or equity/stock prices Column 6: Impact of Interest Rates - This is the PnL due to changes in interest rates Column 7: Impact of Volatility - This is the PnL due to changes in volatilities. Volatilities are used to value Option (finance) (i.e., calls and puts) Column 8: Impact of New Trades - PnL from trades done on the current day Column 9: Impact of Cancellation / Amendment - PnL from trades cancelled or changed on the current day Methodologies There are two methodologies for calculating Pnl Explained, the 'sensitivities' method and the 'revaluation' method. Sensitivities method The Sensitivities Method involves first calculating option sensitivities known as the Greeks because of the common practice of representing the sensitivities using Greek letters. For example, the delta of an option is the value an option changes due to a $1 move in the underlying commodity or equity/stock. See . To calculate 'Impact of Prices' the formula is: Impact of Prices = Option Delta * Price Move; so if the price moves $100 and the option's delta is 0.05% then the 'Impact of Prices' is $0.05. To generalize, then, for example to yield curves: Impact of Prices