What the Overview is for#
The Overview is home base. It answers "how is my whole portfolio doing right now?" on one screen, and you decide what that screen holds. Open it from the Overview row in the sidebar, with g then o, or through the command palette.
The page has three parts, top to bottom:
- A page head with today's date, how fresh your quotes are, and the Default, Focus, and Research preset switcher.
- A hero band with your total value, today's change, and a strip of metric chips.
- A widget grid of cards: performance, allocation, holdings, market, tags, income, activity, and more.
Every figure on the page is in your base currency. More on that below.
The hero band#
The big number is everything you own, added together: every account's cash balance plus every position's quantity times its latest price. Today's change sits under it.
Next to the TOTAL VALUE label is an eye icon. Click it to hide every amount across the app. Percentages and weights stay visible, so Pyx remains useful on a shared screen, just without the exact figures. You can also press CmdShiftM or run Toggle Privacy from the command palette.
To the right of the total is the chip strip. The Default preset shows five chips:
| Chip | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Cash Holdings | How much of the portfolio is sitting in cash |
| Unrealized G/L | Gain or loss on positions you still hold |
| Realized G/L | Gain or loss you locked in by selling |
| Cost Basis | What you paid for the positions you hold |
| Holdings | How many positions you own |
"G/L" is short for gain/loss. More chips are one right-click away: Total G/L, Return on Cost, Annual Income, Day Change, and the performance and risk figures, from time-weighted and money-weighted returns to Sharpe, beta, and VaR.
How the numbers are computed#
Day change compares each position's latest price to its previous close from the quote. Pyx only counts a position's move when the quote actually carries a previous close, so a missing data point never fabricates a swing. The percent version divides by your total portfolio value, cash included.
Unrealized G/L is market value minus cost basis, summed across every non-cash position. The percent version divides by your total cost basis, so it answers "how much has what I paid grown?" It is a paper number. It changes every day and you have not locked it in.
Realized G/L is the opposite: profit and loss made permanent by selling. Once realized, market moves no longer touch it.
Unrealized gains are not income. They can vanish in a bad week. Keeping the two chips separate is deliberate.
Cost basis has real depth behind it, including tax lots and FIFO versus LIFO accounting. Pyx tracks what you paid per purchase, not just an average blur. Read cost basis and lots for the full picture.
No figure shown twice#
The chip picker flags any metric a card on the page already shows, with a small tag naming the owner: HERO for day change, PERF for the returns in the Performance card's footer, RISK for the Risk & ratios card, INCOME for annual income and dividends. It is a flag, not a block. You can still add the chip. The built-in presets never repeat a figure.
The widgets#
Each card has a title, a gear that opens its options, and a right-click menu. Click a row in Holdings, Market snapshot, or Income & events to open that security's research page. Click a row in Tags to open the tag.
| Widget | Shows | Options |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | Portfolio value or return over time, with a footer of period return, annualized, money-weighted, and max drawdown | Value or Return, default range from 1M to All, area or line, SPY benchmark overlay |
| Allocation | Donut, bars, or treemap of your money | Asset class, sector, account, region, account type, or a custom scheme; which accounts; legend as percent, value, or both; exclude cash |
| Holdings | A ranked list with value, day change, and total return, or rows banded by account | Top movers today, largest positions, best total return, or worst total return |
| Market snapshot | Last price, day change, and a sparkline per symbol, with the market's open or closed state | Any symbols you want (SPY, QQQ, IWM, ^VIX, and ^TNX by default, with DIA, BTC-USD, and GLD in the starter list), sparklines on or off |
| Tags | Every tag with held members: color, member count, a bar, and day change | Sort by day change, exposure, or name; bar shows day change or exposure |
| Income & events | Annual income and yield on cost, then upcoming earnings and filings for what you hold, and what was recently reported | Horizon of 30, 60, 90, or 180 days; event types |
| Recent activity | Your latest transactions with a BUY, SELL, DIV, INT, FEE, or CASH badge | Which transaction types to include |
| Risk & ratios | Tiles for Sharpe, Sortino, volatility, max drawdown, beta, and VaR | Period of 1Y, 3Y, or All; which stats, including CVaR, Calmar, information ratio, and alpha; risk-free rate and VaR confidence |
| Metric tile | One number, big, with an optional sparkline | Any metric from the Overview or Performance catalogs |
Metric tile is the only widget you can place more than once. Lists that run longer than their card page through the rest with arrows at the bottom.
Customizing the layout#
Press CmdE, or pick Customize Overview from the View menu, to enter edit mode. A floating Customizing pill appears at the top of the page. While it is on:
- Drag a card to rearrange the grid.
- Resize a card with its size control.
- Remove a card with its minus badge.
- Click Done on the pill when you are finished.
Every change saves the moment you make it. There is nothing to commit.
Cards come in five sizes on a four-column grid. Small is one column by two rows, tall is one by four, medium is two by two, large is two by four, and extra large spans the full width. Each widget allows the sizes that suit it. The grid packs cards densely, so a small card fills a gap an earlier wide card left behind. When the window is narrow, the grid drops to two columns.
You can do all of this without edit mode, too:
- Right-click a card for Widget options, a size for each size it allows, Move up, down, left, or right, Customize layout, Add widget, and Remove widget.
- Right-click a chip to hide it or choose metrics.
- Right-click the page background to add a widget, choose metrics, toggle Customize layout, or reset to the active preset.
To add a card, choose Add widget from any right-click menu. It lists every widget, checks off the ones already on the page, and ends with Browse gallery. Add Widget in the View menu opens that gallery directly: a side sheet that describes each widget and the sizes it allows.
The same actions live in the command palette: Customize Overview, Overview: Add Widget, Overview: Choose Metrics, and Overview: Reset Layout.
Layout presets#
Three built-in presets sit in the page head. Picking one replaces the grid and the chip strip.
| Preset | Widgets | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| Default | Performance, Allocation, Market snapshot, Holdings, Tags, Income & events, Recent activity | Cash, Unrealized, Realized, Cost Basis, Holdings |
| Focus | A full-width one-year Performance chart, Holdings by top movers, Market snapshot, Income & events | Cash, Total G/L |
| Research | Performance in return mode with the SPY benchmark, Risk & ratios, Tags by exposure, Holdings by best total return, Allocation by sector, Income & events over 90 days | Total G/L, Return on Cost, Alpha, Net Contributions, Annualized |
Your edits change the working layout, never the preset itself. Reset Overview Layout in the View menu, or Reset to preset on a background right-click, puts back the active preset's grid and chips.
One base currency#
Pyx handles portfolios in more than one currency. Choose a base currency under Settings > Accounts > Portfolio, or with the Base currency palette command. There are 36 to pick from and the default is USD.
Every portfolio-level figure on the Overview converts into that base: the total, cash, cost basis, gains, day change, income, allocation weights, and the performance series. Each value converts at the FX rate for its own date, from daily Yahoo Finance currency pairs stored on your machine. Prices and transaction amounts elsewhere in the app keep their native currency and symbol, and pence-quoted London listings convert through the pound.
When you hold more than one currency, an FX pill in the status bar lists the other currencies and how old their rates are. Click it to change the base. If a rate is missing, the pill turns into a warning and that value is left out of totals instead of being added as if it were in your base currency.
How to read the colors#
Green means gain, red means loss, and Pyx never relies on color alone. Negative numbers carry a minus sign, so the page reads correctly if you are color blind or running a high-contrast theme.
Concepts behind this page#
Two ideas keep the Overview honest:
Deposits are not gains. A portfolio that grew because you added money did not perform. The Performance card and the full Performance page use time-weighted returns so contributions never masquerade as growth. See time-weighted and money-weighted returns.
Basis is what you paid. Every gain number on this page is measured against cost basis, and how basis is computed matters more than most people expect. See cost basis, tax lots, FIFO and LIFO.
Where to go next#
- Every position in detail: Holdings
- How your money is divided: Allocation
- Growth over time, measured fairly: Performance
- Grouping securities your way: Tags