A percentage gain or loss on an investment is extremely useful to investors who monitor performance. Calculating it is quite easy. Here's what you need to know.

How to calculate Simply put, an unrealized gain or loss is the difference between an investment's value now, and its value at a certain point in the past.

To calculate the gains or losses on a stock investment, one must first know the cost basis, which is the purchase price initially paid for the stock.

The article How to Calculate Gain or Loss on a Bond Redemption originally appeared on Fool.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days .

So, in our example, the unrealized gain would be $500. Why is it important? Unrealized gains and losses can be useful to know because they let you know how your portfolio is performing.

The article How to Calculate Gain or Loss on a Bond Redemption originally appeared on Fool.com. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days.

How to calculate Simply put, an unrealized gain or loss is the difference between an investment's value now, and its value at a certain point in the past. The calculation can be done for any time ...