Paper profit is a term that is used in reference to a situation that might occur as part of investing when there is an upward review of an asset, which may be the consequence of an appreciation of the market value of the asset in question. When people make investments, something that may be in the form of a stock or some other defined type of asset, it is for an ascertainable sum of money. Even when people inherit the asset or security, it usually has a market value at the time that they inherit it. Over time, changes may occur in the market that may lead to a situation where the value of the assets will either increase or decrease, leading to a difference between the value of the item under consideration at the time and the value of the same item at the time the owner either purchased or inherited it. It is this upward appreciation of the value of the item that is known as paper profit due to the fact that the profit is only on paper and has not been converted to physical cash by the owner.

只有当这样的人成功地以接近增加的价格出售该物品时，资产所有者才可能决定将其转化为真正的利润。 在这种情况下，利润将是在总售价中减去原来的市场价值后剩下的部分，包括税收和其他费用。 一个例子可以看出，投资者以规定的金额购买了一家计算机公司的一些股票。 如果两年后股票的市场价值突然增加，投资者的股票出现了40%的向上增长，股票价值的40%增长将是纸面利润。 当股票所有者出售股票并在减去费用和税收后实现至少30%到35%的利润时，这个纸面利润将转化成真正的利润。

即使这个概念看起来是积极的，但一些投资者发现它是他们寻求投资利润最大化的障碍。 例如，假设计算机公司的股票上涨那么高的原因是由于一个新产品引起了很多人的兴趣，一些投资者可能决定通过出售股票将纸面利润转化为实际利润，而其他人可能不会，认为股票的价值将继续上升。 假设这种情况没有发生，那么投资者将失去一个宝贵的机会，赚取健康利润。