Market value
Market value is what a position is worth at this moment: the number of shares you hold multiplied by the most recent price, converted into the currency you report in. Adding up every position, plus any cash, gives the market value of the portfolio. It is the figure that moves every day and the one most people mean when they say what their portfolio is.
Why it matters
On its own it answers only one question. It carries no memory of what you paid, so it cannot tell you whether you are ahead, and it carries no memory of what you deposited, so a portfolio that grew mainly because you kept adding money looks the same as one that grew because it performed. Read next to cost basis it becomes an unrealized gain, and read next to deposits it becomes a return. Which price it is based on also matters: a value taken mid-session and a value taken at the close are two different numbers.
How BullBenchmark shows it
We value each holding on prices that refresh hourly while markets are open and settle on the official closing prices after the American close, converted at daily exchange rates. Every position shows its value next to its cost, so the two are never read in isolation, and time travel produces the same valuation for a chosen day in the past. The valued positions table is open on the demo dashboard.
Related terms
Cost basis · Portfolio weight · Base currency
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