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Yes and no,
The foreign exchange market has a 2 day settlement. Meaning that everytime you carry a position past a firms "cut off" hour where the next trading day begins, they must roll the position into the next settlement date. If this was not done, you would recieve an actual cash position with the bank (in theory).
What they do is ...........
you short market at 1.3025 before 3 pm cst. At 3 pm, the buy at the current market prices (liquidate) and sell at the same price (establish a new position)
- buy @ 1.0311 and sell @ 1.3011 at the same time-
The money that was made or lost with the roll (in your instance profit was realized) and place that money into the UPL section of your platform. You are then left with a short position from the roll price of 1.3011.
UPL will display a profit or loss for two business days (2 day settlement) and then will transfer into your available cash section. UPL is the cash that you have lost or made on all your postions that have been liquidated but not yet been settled. FPL (floating p&l) is your profit or loss on all your positions that you still have open.
One last example
short market @1.3025, you get rolled into the next settlement date at 1.3011. $140.00 USD positive appears in your UPL, you are now short from the price of 1.3011. 1 hour later the market is at 1.3001, you show a profit of $100.00 USD in your FPL. From your original position you are profiting a total of $240.00 USD, but you have locked in $140.00 USD of that from the roll.
Some people look at it as taking profit and placing a new target for profit from the roll price, others combine the two and never change their stops or profit targets.
Sorry for the long post,
Jason
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