How to view/report/compare gains from a money market portion of IRA?

Pennypincher

I am invested in various funds in an IRA including a money market fund. The investments all show gains/losses. The money market does not; as it reinvests dividends, it simply increases the cost basis and the gain is zero. I understand from other posts in this community that this is accepted as the correct thing to do. However, I would like to see if the money market has actually performed better than some of the investments, so that I can make informed decisions on movement of money. I can find no way of comparing the recent or historic performance of the funds + mutual fund against one another in Quicken. Is there a way to do this?

Tom Young

Do Reports > Investing > Investment Performance using that Account as the source and setting whatever time frame you want to use. Select only the money market fund as the sole security. You'll get an IRR number for that security. Then delete that money market fund and instead pick all the other securities in the Account. You'll get an IRR number for all those funds combined. The higher IRR number will give you the best "return" for the period but, of course, it's not risk-adjusted.

q_lurker

Following in Tom’s direction, with the report set to the applicable account and time frame, I would simply Subtotal by Security; not be selective as to the included securities. You’ll get a comparable return rate for each security individually. His method was giving you one value for the MM fund and a second value for all-other-funds. Whatever works best for you.

Jim_Harman

Or you can see similar performance calculations with an Investing > Portfolio view. You can use the standard Historic Performance view or customize a view to include the Avg. Annual Return (%) 1 yr, 3 yr, and 5 yr columns to see performance over those time periods.

Note that these IRR calculations and those in the Investing Performance Report are annualized so periods of less than one year may give unexpected results.