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I have several activity records which include several transaction types: buy, sell, short, cover, etc.

I understand the impact of buy and sell on the Unrealized, Daily and Realized P&L of a security or Portfolio.

However, how do you deal with a short position in a security? Is everything just in reverse (i.e. buy * -1)?

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Lots of ways to do this. Below is a pretty simple example:

Side    Position (Shares)   Entry Price Current Price   Open PnL
Long    1000                100         90              -10,000
Short   -1000               100         90               10,000

You don't need the Side and Position if you are going to use -ve values for Short positions. I just put both in for your benefit. Having Short and a -ve Position size is redundant and/or a double negative. Using either one to adjust your PnL formula will work. I personally use -ve numbers for Short positions and don't use an actual Short label.

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