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Performance

Gary R

I know the performance numbers in Quicken are way off from my brokerage accounts, but I wanted to see if the Dow Jones Industrials were accurate. They are also way off for the two year period. The Dow is up 7.89 from 12/31/2021 —12/31/2023. Quicken is showing the Dow down 2.52%. $10,000 beginning balance on 12/31/2021—-Ending $9768.

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Comments

Jim_Harman

See how the Dow line is flat from 12/21 thru 5/22?

It looks like Quicken has no data for the Dow for that time period. Look in the price history for the Dow to confirm.

You should be able to download that data by using Get historical prices.

Gary R

Jim:

I checked and there is accurate price history for the entire five year period. I still went a downloaded again and no change.

Gary R

I knew my performance from Quicken would be way off. I've been using Quicken forever, and the performance numbers never come close to my brokerage numbers. However, I thought that the Dow performance would at least be in the same ballpark.

Gary R

I closed Quicken and re-opened and got these new results:

DJIA—Beginning $10,000, Ending $10,372—-Up close to 4%

Well, that's not that far off now. The DJIA was up 7.89 for the two year time frame.

Gary R

Jim—-I spent hours checking my total returns for each account for Quicken and my brokerage statements for the two year period and they were almost identical. From Dec. 31 2021 thru December 31, 2023, I was down 1% across all my accounts.

I was happy that all accounts were in agreement. However, the performance graph shown above with the yellow line shows that the ending balance is $10,800 or an 8% increase over the two year period. ($10,000 beginning)

I'd be curious if anyone has had any luck with the performance graph.

NotACPA

@Gary R On 12/31/21 the Dow closed at 36,338.3. On 12/29/23 is closed at 37,689.54 (figures provided by Fidelity Investments).

That's 3.7% increase or 1,351 points. How did you get 7.89?

Chris_QPW

For what it is worth, my graph looks the same as your corrected one does. Also, I checked the starting and ending prices for the DJI and they are the same in Quicken as what Yahoo has.

q_lurker

Well, that's not that far off now. The DJIA was up 7.89 for the two year time frame.

I don't know where you are getting that 7.98% for the Dow 30 Industrials.

12/31/21 = 36,338.30
12/29/23 = 37689.54
That's 3.72%

Your source may be including dividends. I see the current yield on Dow 30 reported to be just over 5%.

As to the Growth of 10K graph, I have always found that to be a bit flaky for real world circumstances - buys and sells, cash added in or taken out. They have made adjustments a couple of times through the years but I just don't fully understand what it is using or quite trust it. I put more stock in the Investment Performance Report. Just be aware with that report that if you are asking for short term numbers, like subtotaling by quarter, they are calculating an annualized return. If you are down 2% in a month, that gets presented as down at an annual rate of almost 25%.

Gary R

The DIA (DJIA) was off

Source—Dividend Channel——-

q_lurker

But both those include dividends paid! Quicken doesn’t have that component. Apples and oranges. Quicken has the market index valuation as it varies over time. That is all.

Chris_QPW

In fact, it is hard to get such charts with the dividends included. For people that do a lot of dividends investing just glancing at a lot of these sites like Yahoo will give you are totally wrong impression on performance. Quicken is no different when it comes to things that aren't based on your actual transactions.

Gary R

I do not reinvest any of my dividends for any of my stocks. I'll wait till I have $1,000 in dividends and then decide where to deploy it.

My last comment was focused on how far off Quicken performance is on my actual portfolio over the past two years.

How can you go from $10,000 to $10,800 when my actual loss is actually $10,000.

Gary R

I don't know where you are getting that 7.98% for the Dow 30 Industrials.

12/31/21 = 36,338.30
12/29/23 = 37689.54
That's 3.72%
See the chart above from Dividend Channel———7.89% is the two year return.

Gary R

There was a comment referring to the Investment Performance report. The Year to date returns will give you the same results for each account in the portfolio view.

Jim_Harman

Same results as what?

The YTD numbers in the Investment Performance Report and Avg Annual Return column in the Portfolio views are annualized, so they will be weird this early in the year.

Gary R

Jim—-I was referring to the 2022 Investment performance report and compared the results to my portfolio view Returns year to date. They were identical for each account. This was for one calendar year

q_lurker

@Gary R

You are asking two different questions - one about the Dow and the second about your account - both in the context of the Growth of $10K chart.

1 - The Dow chart in that Growth is purely the Dow Jones 30 Industrials Index as broadly followed and published. That index does not monitor or use dividends paid by those 30 companies. That index grew by about 3.7% over the 2022-23 two year period - not including dividends.

The DIA exchange traded fund emulates the performance of the Dow 30 Industrials, but it also pays dividends. That is what you set up on The Dividend Channel. That presentation of DIA performance INCLUDES dividends, either reinvested (upper of your two figures) or just as paid out cash (lower of your two charts).

Your 7.98% return figure for the Dow over that two year period includes the quarterly(?) dividends paid by DIA and reinvested. The Dow $10K chart in Quicken does NOT include those dividends.

2 - You are phrasing your second question most clearly as (paraphrasing). "How can the chart go from $10,000 to $10,800 when my actual account lost $10,000?" As I tried to indicate, what goes into that chart for the Quicken Users Account can be difficult to monitor and be quirky. Frankly it takes digging to identify the details. Two directions that might help you understand

a) You can create a Portfolio Value & Cost basis report for the same time period and the same security & account selection with the values at a monthly interval. You can then compare those month end values against the values you see when you hover over the yellow dots in the $10K chart. if those values start diverging, it may be because the chart values consider dividends. You can also see in the hover-over box Net Additions. Those values also will impact the end result.

b) In trying to understand the $10K chart, I find it helpful to start with one security and maybe one account. Once I have that understanding, I can extend it to a multiple securities and multiple accounts. The chart is not perfect, especially when assets are added to or taken from the collection that is being graphed.

Gary R

q_lurker SuperUser

I know you are trying to be helpful, but your second suggestion is not worth the time and effort to achieve nothing.

You state that the Dow chart does not include dividends. I'm not sure how you know this, but it really doesn't matter.

I showed you the returns with and without dividends. They are about the same.

Lets move on and end this topic. Quicken's performance chart is worthless and of no use to me.

q_lurker

No, your DIA Dividend Channel info is with dividends REINVESTED (7.98% total return) and with dividends NOT reinvested but still collected as cash (7.35% total return). Both include the $13.14 of dividends.

I know the Dow chart does not include dividends because I can do the arithmetic. I can see the values that are being used.

The Growth chart is not simply end divided by beginning. It considers what goes in and what comes out.

NotACPA

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20407133#Comment_20407133

You're comparing apples and orangutans (not even oranges). The DIA security, while it attempts to track the DJIA, isn't the same as the DJIA.

Your own figures for 2021 and 2023 clearly show 3.72%. That's without dividends. The DIA number includes dividends.

q_lurker

@NotACPA For the record, the first part of that post you just quoted - through the first three bullets - was me from an earlier post explaining why the 3.72% was right for Quicken. The last bullet and on was Gary trying to clarify his 7.98%.

Chris_QPW

Let's face it the Growth of $10,000 graph is useless for almost everyone, unless all you want to make your investments look better than they are.

First off, just as it was wrong to compare the Dow Jones Index with dividends to a chart without it, it is useless to compare your investments with dividends, to indexes without them.

But on top of that the whole idea of how they are calculating this seems wrong to me. Mind you I don't know to do the "calculation right", and in fact there might not really be a right way to compare them. That is why "theorical mutual fund returns" are always wrong for any given investor.

Looking at the help on the chart it says "Quicken subtracts the value of cash or securities added during the period selected.

On the surface that sounds right, because that isn't in the original $10,000. And it does the opposite for sells/withdraws.

But removing the cash used to buy a security, ignores the fact those securities are now going to generate dividends. The value that buy to the investment isn't just the initial cash used to buy it. It also ignores the fact that your cost basis just changed too.

Jim_Harman

If you want to compare your investment performance to an index that includes reinvested dividends, you can add the security index:spxt to your security list with a security type of Market index. This is the S&P 500 Total Return index.

Also, I agree that as currently implemented the Growth of $10,000 chart is not particularly useful. See this discussion for an updated discussion on this topic

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7939992/investment-performance

Gary R

"DJIA—Beginning $10,000, Ending $10,372—-Up close to 4%Well, that's not that far off now. The DJIA was up 7.89 for the two year time frame." That was my original post after I updated my historical prices suggested by Jim Harman. The yellow line, my actual returns are way off.

There have been numerous replies and suggestions how to accomplish my end results. I'm simply looking for easy peasy. I don't want to learn coding, programming, go back to college to take computer science courses. I'm paying Quicken a yearly fee to their programmers to figure this **** out. I want to see total return figures with dividends reinvested or paid in cash on those graphs. WTF—-My brokerage accounts show me performance with dividends and market changes daily, why can't the programmers at Intuit figure this out!

I'm done with this thread and hopefully no more suggestions. This is my last comment on this topic. I rely on my brokerage accounts for accurate up to date performance figures (Total Returns). Quicken is completely useless, outdated, and worthless if you want to know your TOTAL RETURN numbers for any time period.

That's all Folks——(As Porky Pig would end the show)

Jim_Harman

For others who may be following this discussion, the best place to see the total return of your investments including dividends and other distributions, is the Investment Performance Report.

The returns in the report are annualized, so they are generally most meaningful if you set the report period to one year or more.

Of course the report will only be as accurate as the data you have entered.

Gary R

Jim—I said I was done with this threat, but I disagree with your last post. The best place to see your total return including dividends and other distributions is in portfolio view—-Year to date returns. Here I can view one number and not have to make a dozen math calculations in the Investment performance report. I have a dozen accounts and each account in the investment performance report shows a beginning and ending balance. Therefore, I have to view each account, do the math, and then sum the total of all accounts.

The Year to date returns, one number, will give you the same results as the investment performance report, without having to spend time doing math.

Gary R

I just spent ten minutes adding up the twelve accounts in the investment report. Investment column was over 2 million, Return column was 2 million less $450. This was from January 1—January 3, 2024.

My Year to date returns for 2024 in my portfolio view shows one number———Negative $450

Why waste my time with the investment performance report, when YTD returns gives the same result.

Gary R

Now, let me show you how worthless the investment performance report chart is with just 9 of my accounts for the past 2 trading days. My beginning and ending values were correct. I was down - $451. However, the top number, beginning balance on 1/1//2024 is $10,000 and ending on 1/3/2024 is $9997. What????????? Only down $3 bucks———Nope.

Jim_Harman

To be clear, the Growth of $10,000 chart you show above is not based on the same calculation as the Investment Performance Report. This chart shows performance in dollars relative to a starting point of $10,000 because that is a standard way of comparing the performance of different investments. You may or may not find it useful for your purposes. I have found Quicken's calculation to be flawed if money is added or removed during the period.

The report I am referring to is at Reports > Investing > Investment Performance. It shows the total return as an annualized percentage, based on an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) calculation. I am confident that Quicken's calculation is correct; it matches Excel's XIRR function. It takes into account the impact of money you have added or removed as well as dividends and other distributions. As I said above, because the results are annualized, they are often not useful for periods of less than one year. You can get a good YTD percentage in this report by setting the period to Yearly and Current year rather than YTD.

Gary R

Jim—-I honestly have completely lost you——This thread is now dead to me.

Have no clue what you are talking about and at this point don't care anymore