X-Ray and Performance tabs under Investment tab

Gary R

When you open Quicken the top tabs show Home, Spending, Investment, Property, etc.
When you click on Investing Tab you can choose several options.  My question is the Performance and X-Ray tab.  The X-Ray never gives me any information and the performance tab is useless.  

UKR

What version and release of Quicken do you have installed? (Help / About Quicken will tell you)

Portfolio X-Ray: Did you "get started" with the required setup? More details, please.

Performance tab: Why is it useless? What do you expect to see vs. what do you actually see? Again, more details, please.

Gary R

I have the latest version of Quicken---There was a new update yesterday
Portfolio X ray was not giving me anything---I played around with it for an hour and finally it worked and listed my accounts.  Performance tab does not give me YTD percentage returns.   I have no idea what it is showing me

Gary R

See performance 

UKR

Gary R said:

See performance 

That's about what my securities show, too. The market has really gone down this year.

You might want to add 1 or 2 of the market indices (checkboxes on the right side of the graph) for comparison and change the date range to Last 12 months, to see if your securities are doing better or worse than the market.

Jim_Harman

The Growth of 10,000 graph is designed to compare the performance of the selected securities to various market indexes. In your graph it does not start at 10,000 because the 1/22 data point is for Jan 31 and your portfolio went down in January.

IMO Quicken's calculation is inaccurate if you added or withdrew from the Portfolio during the period. 

[Deleted User]

@Gary R - There a glitch in the Portfolio X Ray that I have noticed for quite a while now.  When you first go into that screen it will look like no accounts or investments are being pulled for the analysis and charts.  Even though the account drop box indicates "All Accounts", you need to click on the accounts drop box and reselect "All Accounts" again.  The charts and analysis will then appear as they should. 

Gary R

UKR said:

Gary R said:

See performance 

That's about what my securities show, too. The market has really gone down this year.

You might want to add 1 or 2 of the market indices (checkboxes on the right side of the graph) for comparison and change the date range to Last 12 months, to see if your securities are doing better or worse than the market.

I was away yesterday and just reading these comments this morning.  I still don't understand the chart.  I want to see how much my total portfolio is down for this year.  This chart doesn't give me any percentage numbers.  Maybe I'm just missing something.

Gary R

Jim_Harman said:

The Growth of 10,000 graph is designed to compare the performance of the selected securities to various market indexes. In your graph it does not start at 10,000 because the 1/22 data point is for Jan 31 and your portfolio went down in January.

IMO Quicken's calculation is inaccurate if you added or withdrew from the Portfolio during the period. 

No idea why it starts with Jan 31 since I set the date to YTD.  It should start January 1.  I selected all securities.  I'm not interested in comparing to index returns.  I just want to see my personal YTD performance returns.  

Gary R

Damian said:

@Gary R - There a glitch in the Portfolio X Ray that I have noticed for quite a while now.  When you first go into that screen it will look like no accounts or investments are being pulled for the analysis and charts.  Even though the account drop box indicates "All Accounts", you need to click on the accounts drop box and reselect "All Accounts" again.  The charts and analysis will then appear as they should. 

Wow---It took me an hour to discover this glitch.  You are absolutely correct.  I always get no accounts and just gave up each time until yesterday.  Yesterday I just selected one account and finally it gave me some information.  Then, I selected all accounts and it worked.

Jim_Harman

Gary R said:

Jim_Harman said:

The Growth of 10,000 graph is designed to compare the performance of the selected securities to various market indexes. In your graph it does not start at 10,000 because the 1/22 data point is for Jan 31 and your portfolio went down in January.

IMO Quicken's calculation is inaccurate if you added or withdrew from the Portfolio during the period. 

No idea why it starts with Jan 31 since I set the date to YTD.  It should start January 1.  I selected all securities.  I'm not interested in comparing to index returns.  I just want to see my personal YTD performance returns.  

I don't know why it works that way either, but that's the way it is. If you just want your YTD performance,  you should look at the ROI (%) YTD column in the Portfolio views.

But that calculation has issues at the account level if there has been trading in the account.

Gary R

Jim_Harman said:

Gary R said:

Jim_Harman said:

The Growth of 10,000 graph is designed to compare the performance of the selected securities to various market indexes. In your graph it does not start at 10,000 because the 1/22 data point is for Jan 31 and your portfolio went down in January.

IMO Quicken's calculation is inaccurate if you added or withdrew from the Portfolio during the period. 

No idea why it starts with Jan 31 since I set the date to YTD.  It should start January 1.  I selected all securities.  I'm not interested in comparing to index returns.  I just want to see my personal YTD performance returns.  

I don't know why it works that way either, but that's the way it is. If you just want your YTD performance,  you should look at the ROI (%) YTD column in the Portfolio views.

But that calculation has issues at the account level if there has been trading in the account.

That would probably work if I held the stock from the January 1, 2022.  The problem is that most of my stocks were bought after January 1 and ROI (%) YTD column just shows N/A which is worthless to me.
I also have a Morningstar premium subscription, but it also does not have any column for YTD returns for the period you actually hold the stock.

Jim_Harman

Or for YTD on the Growth of 10,000, try setting the starting date to 12/31/2021.

Gary R

Jim, I never thought of setting the date to custom range.  I just tried it and set 12/31/2021.  I think you just cracked the case.  It starts with $10,000 and end with $8613.  This would be a 13.87% performance decline and that actually looks correct.  Thanks Jim for your help.  

Gary R

Jim---I also just checked with the different index for performance YTD and within 1/2 percent.  Excellent!!
I'm sure the difference is dividends not included in the Quicken performance numbers

Jim_Harman

Not that the standard indexes Quicken provides do not include reinvested dividends. You can, however, set up other indexes that do include dividends

Jim_Harman

For more on issues with Quicken's performance calculations, please see these discussions

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7905946/improve-growth-of-10-000-calculation-so-it-does-not-overstate-returns-with-purchases-or-sales

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7864889/account-level-amount-invested-and-roi-are-calculated-incorrectly-when-a-security-is-sold

Gary R

In the portfolio performance tab that we are referring to says Dividend income gains not included.
However, The Dow and S&P 500 Year to date returns actually agree with the portfolio performance tab to the exact % amount.  Check it out

GeoffG

Damian said:

@Gary R - There a glitch in the Portfolio X Ray that I have noticed for quite a while now.  When you first go into that screen it will look like no accounts or investments are being pulled for the analysis and charts.  Even though the account drop box indicates "All Accounts", you need to click on the accounts drop box and reselect "All Accounts" again.  The charts and analysis will then appear as they should. 

That bug was introduced around nine months ago and seems here to stay. I found a work around by selecting custom first then selecting all securities. Select the appropriate securities for the first dropdown.
The selection sticks and for me no longer errors out.

Gary R

Damian -----Excellent troubleshooting skills---That works----

Jim_Harman

Gary R said:

In the portfolio performance tab that we are referring to says Dividend income gains not included.
However, The Dow and S&P 500 Year to date returns actually agree with the portfolio performance tab to the exact % amount.  Check it out

What column are you looking at in the Portfolio view?

Are you looking at the Dow and S&P 500 index data in the Portfolio view? Those indexes do not include dividends. 

To compare your performance to the S&P 500 Total Return index, which does include reinvested dividends, add the security INDEX:SPXT to your security list.

Then on the Investing > Performance tab, select that index from the dropdown below Compare with:

If you own an S&P 500 index fund and have been reinvesting dividends and have made no purchases or sales during the year, select just that account and security in the Performance view and select both the S&P 500 and the TR version of the indexes. You should see that the TR index has slightly better performance and matches the performance of your fund.

Gary R

The column that I'm looking at is Performance.  The Dow and S&P index I check off shows the correct YTD returns with dividends.  

Gary R

Dow Performance YTD is same as shown in chart

Jim_Harman

You are free to compare your performance to the indexes that Quicken provides. That may be appropriate if you are receiving your dividends in cash and do not consider the dividends as part of your investment performance.

All I am saying is that those indexes do not include dividends. The footnote on the Growth of $10,000 chart is incorrect when it implies that Quicken's S&P index numbers do include dividends.

Gary R

Jim---I have to disagree with you on this one.  Those index on the right DO include dividends.  I checked each one and they agree with the YTD returns in the charts that include total return.

I use Morningstar for performance and charts with dividends reinvested and trailing returns.

Jim_Harman

We do disagree. Please see these articles for more information.
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/040915/does-sp-500-index-include-dividends.asp

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/djia.asp

Re: Morningstar, are we talking about mutual funds or ETFs?

M* tracks total returns for funds but prices for ETFs. When they show indexes, there is generally a PR (Price) or TR (Total Return) at the end.

Gary R

Jim-----Morningstar shows total return for SPY and that includes dividends.
YTD it really doesn't matter since the YTD returns are almost identical.

Jim_Harman

The two graphs in your screenshot both include dividends, one reinvested and one not. That certainly does not make much difference over 7 months, and even including or ignoring dividends entirely does not make much difference over a short period.

Over a longer period, however, dividends vs no dividends does make a difference. For example, Morningstar shows the 5 year trailing total return of SPY as of 7/28/2022 to be 12.41%



For the same period, Quicken's Avg. Annual Return for the S&P 500 index it normally links to is 10.83% because it does not include dividends.

The Avg. Annual Return for the S&P 500 TR index, which includes reinvested dividends, is 12.49%, matching the total return of SPY. SPY's return is slightly lower due to its fees.

Gary R

Jim----Agree with your analysis----Good explanation and appreciate your feedback