What's up with my Avg Return numbers/

mullins.scott.s

Trying to understand why the total amount of my 3- and 5-year Average Annual return %'s are so deeply in the negative.

mullins.scott.s

See screencap

Jim_Harman

You could start by running the Investing > Investment Performance report for the same time period. This will show all the transactions that drive the calculations.

q_lurker

I believe the asterisks at the bottom level values indicates placeholders are involved.  The placeholders may not apply to current holdings.  If placeholders do exist, they are likely throwing off the calculations. 

mullins.scott.s

Thanks @Jim_Harman tried that, still doesn't make sense...@q_lurker, the place holder is for a +0.001 share difference between what my brokerage says and what Quicken says I should have in one of my investment that I just haven't taken the time to resolve. Surely that isn't the culprit. Here's ultimately what doesn't make sense to me: as I run the numbers on other columns (like Gain/Loss 1-, 3-, 12- months), the math works. When I run them for the Avg Annual Return % (YTD, 1-, 3-, 5-yrs) it doesn't. I'm guessing that I don't understand how the %'s are calculated and that running a straight total doesn't take all the background calculations into account. Could the fact that I haven't owned shares in many of these investments for 12 months yet be confusing the calculations?

Jim_Harman

The Avg Annual Return (%) numbers are annualized. If you have held a security for less than 12 months, it assumes that the performance will continue at the same rate for a full year. The calculation is correct, but this may make the gains or losses larger than you would expect. This is the case for all the securities that have N/A in the Gain/Loss 12-month column. This also explains why these numbers are the same in the 1, 3, and 5 yr columns. 

Are there other numbers that still don't make sense?

q_lurker

 ... the place holder is for a +0.001 share difference between what my brokerage says and what Quicken says I should have in one of my investment that I just haven't taken the time to resolve. Surely that isn't the culprit. 

Don't know.  Backup the file, delete the placeholder, and see -- would be my suggestion.  I assume that placeholder was for the 5th security in your list (which shows the asterisk also).

I can see that it might not make sense for the 5-year 'total' to be -79% while the listed securities are almost all positive, but it is not clear what you are showing?  Grouped by Account?  Multiple Accounts?  Selected securities? Cash?  Closed lots included?  All that is where the Investment Performance report Jim referenced can provide more details.  You've offered nothing about that as to why it didn't make sense.    

Jim_Harman

Also the Portfolio views normally only include securities that you hold on the "As of" date. If you closed out position(s) with a large loss more than a year ago, that might account for the  large losses in the 3 and 5 year totals.

This will appear in the Investment Performance report for these periods as a total in the Returns column being much less than the total of the Investments column.

You can adjust the starting date for the report to see when the problem occurs.

mullins.scott.s

Thanks again...I have never used the Performance Report prior to your suggestion. My portfolio is pretty much all mutual funds and is managed by my FinAdv. I have not sold anything off with a big loss although there has been some in-and-out in the past few months. I'll do some looking into the past in the register and see if I can identify just when these %'s started showing up in the negative. I appreciate your help. I'll circle back if I have more questions.