Investment Report not showing dividends

Question

When I run the Investment Performance YTD report and select a few securities, the report shows dividends received from these securities in the Returns column. When I select all securities, it does not show any dividends. Any ideas why or what I need to do to see dividends.

bmciance · Accepted Answer

Interesting.  I don't normally use this report but I am seeing the same thing.  Pick a few stocks and it shows dividends but pick them all and it seems to only show cash transfers.  However, I just noticed that there is a "security" called "no security".  See the below screenshot:

If you uncheck that it does show the dividends and interest transactions.  I'm not sure if that is intentional (seems more like a bug to me).

q_lurker · Accepted Answer

The Investment Performance Report is not intended as a tool for showing transactions.

My description of the premise is:* You have a selection of assets identified to be included in the report.  This might be by security, by account, by security type, etc.  All the filtering options available.  That constitutes a 'universe' of your selection.  
* If assets come into or go out of that universe from (to) other sources, those transactions constitute an investment (come into) or a return (go out from) for that specific universe - that selection of securities and accounts.
* The 'universe' has also grown (or shrunk) from its beginning size to its ending size.  That change in size has resulted from internal transactions (Buys, sells, dividends, interest, etc.).
* Taken altogether, there was a beginning, some additions to the universe, some removals from the universe, and an ending.  Those yield an average annual return figure.

So if you exclude 'Cash' - the 'No security (includes cash)' selection - then each dividend paid in cash is an outflow leaving your selected universe, and the dividend shows up as a 'Return' transaction in the list.  If that 'No security' is selected to be included in your universe, then the dividend paid in cash is just something that makes the ending value a little bigger.  It is an internal (to that universe) transaction, and does not get itemized.

HTH

Jim_Harman · Accepted Answer

The Investment Performance Report is acting correctly. If you have the "No security (includes cash)" security selected, then the return from dividends and the addition to the cash on the same day cancel each other out and do not show in the report..

The value of the dividends is included in the closing balance, so the performance calculation is correct.