Two numbers answer two different questions, and picking the wrong one is the most common way to waste an afternoon.
Trade A ROI 500% profit $50,000 Trade B ROI 40% profit $20,000,000
Trade A uses your money five times more efficiently. Trade B makes four hundred times more money.
What each one is for
ROI is efficiency: profit as a share of what you had to put in. It tells you how hard your money works, and nothing about how much money is on the table.
Executable profit is size: what the whole run would clear at the prices actually on the board. It tells you whether the opportunity is worth the trip.
The trap
A tiny trade can post an enormous ROI. Buy one item for $10, sell it for $60, and that is 500% — on five dollars. Sorting by ROI alone puts those at the top of the board.
Sort by executable profit and you get the opposite problem: the biggest numbers may need more capital than you have. Which is the lesson after next.
A rule that survives contact
Use executable profit to decide whether a trade is worth doing, and ROI to choose between trades you could actually afford.