Computing YTD or Year Performanance with Vanguard

[RyanM]

Any quick/easy way to extract YTD performance as a % on vanguards website. So I can quickly track my returns relative to the market?

 

[LOL!]

Can you please be more specific?

It is easy to see the YTD performance of any Vanguard fund on their website: Go to the fund quote and click on the "Performance" tab.

Vanguard has a Personal return for what you hold there as well, but I have never had it calculate the correct number.

 

[Katsmeow]

I also was unable to find anything that gave the overall return taking into consideration all additions and withdrawals from the account.

So I did some research and found a spreadsheet to do XIRR calculation and just do that in Excel.

 

[target2019]

I do not have quicken, but you can download data to that as well.

Haven't tried the Excel download much, as I don't need the precision of the XIRR calc for Vanguard accounts.

 

[Htown Harry]

I couldn't find what you are looking for.

Closest thing was "my accounts / balances & holdings / balances compared to year end". It only displays a simple mathematical difference and percentage change between a 12/31/11 fund balance and today's fund balance. Totals show the same calculated data at the account and total assets level.

Over at "accounts / balances & holdings / current balances", you can click on an individual fund name then see the "Fund average annual returns (fee-adjusted) - YTD" on the right side. It's listed as of 11/30/12, unfortunately.

Comparing MS Money's calculated 11/30/12 returns to the latter method shows 11.06% vs. 10.9%. Why is it different?

I personally don't really care - this level of evaluation is just a PITA to me. The 10-minute detour to research and write this post has reminded me why I don't worry about return calculations beyond looking at changes to my grand total and eyeing the relative return rates between funds.

 

[LOL!]

@Vanguard > My Accounts > Personal performance
It's an interesting presentation because it does not show total of your accounts, but only the "Personal investment returns" (that is, no principal).

 

[bondi688]

@Vanguard > My Accounts > Personal performance
It's an interesting presentation because it does not show total of your accounts, but only the "Personal investment returns" (that is, no principal).

I have not checked that lately, but I remember the purported return did not separate out additions you put in the account from loss and gains of the holdings, i.e. the account dollar increase include both return on investment and new money you put it. I therefore found that calculation useless and had not accessed it to look at my personal rate of return. I don't know if they have changed that to make that a useful metric.

 

[LOL!]

I don't know either, but there is a link on how the number is calculated right there to read.

 

[Alan]

I have not checked that lately, but I remember the purported return did not separate out additions you put in the account from loss and gains of the holdings, i.e. the account dollar increase include both return on investment and new money you put it. I therefore found that calculation useless and had not accessed it to look at my personal rate of return. I don't know if they have changed that to make that a useful metric.

Personal performance does include your contributions and withdrawals and when I compare my spreadsheet XIRR to that of Personal Performance then it is very close.

To find out raw performance for a fund then select Performance and it will the return assuming no additions or withdrawals, with dividends and gains reinvested.

 

[target2019]

Here are the steps I used to calculate personal rate of return with downloaded Vanguard data.

1. Log in and go to the summary page which lists all of your accounts. In my account the funds are grouped by investing space.
2. Select or deselect the funds you want to download. For example, I selected just the funds in my SEP-IRA, meaning four funds.
3. Click on the download button in upper right of page.
4. Save the file with a meaningful name, such as "2012 SEP transactions."
5. Open that file in Excel or other program.
6. Sort the data from oldest to newest date.
7. At top of data, under the headings, delete transactions not in this year.
8. Insert one row for 1/1/2012 at top, and enter the starting balance in last column.
9. Add a row at the bottom for 12/31/2012, and enter the ending balance as a negative number.
10. Just to the right or underneath the ending balance, Formulas > Insert Function > XIRR (A dialog box opens to help you the rest of the way.)
11. In the Values box enter the range of cells from beginning to ending balance.
12. In the Dates box enter the range of cells from 1/1/2012 to 12/31/2012.
13. In the Guess box enter .10 or similar.
14. Click the Ok button. 6.72% was my result.

This account holds:
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Adm 44.5%
Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund Inv 10.2%
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Adm 19.7%
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Adm 25.5%

YTD returns (in Google) for above funds are:
Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund Adm 4.31%
Vanguard High-Yield Corporate Fund Inv 14.26%
Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Adm 14.42%
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Adm 17.08%

So my XIRR calculation of 0.067280027 or 6.7% seems reasonable.