Quicken performance calculation

[Cpadave]

For those who use Quicken, can you tell me if what I am doing is right to arrive at investment performance by category. I go into reports->Investing->Investment performance. I then change the date to custom date of ending to 12/31/2018. I ask it to sort by security type. I then compare those performance with equivalent indexes or funds. For example my bond performance vs VCIT (Vanguard inter corp. )

I pick my own Reits, Bonds and preferred positions. I use mostly ETF index funds for equity. So it is important for me to see how I am doing compared to market. Thanks for input.

 

[pb4uski]

Yes, if you change the end date from current date to 12/31/2018 it will convert from annualized yield to YTD return. I tested it for a Roth that we have that has VTSAX and has had no investment activity and it works perfectly... YTD return is exactly the same as Vanguard's website.

 

[Cpadave]

Thanks. It makes it easy and fast to do what I need

 

[audreyh1]

The Quicken ROI function YTD is a reasonable estimate of YTD return using the current days date.

Why need end of year date?

 

[Cpadave]

Because quicken takes the YTD number and annualized it. I checked this by comparing what it was showing me for VTI and what the total return was for that ETF. If you don't change the date to 12/31, it will give you the wrong number.

 

[OldShooter]

My experience has always been that the Quicken calculations are unreliable. Once in a while it would produce a credible number but in many cases they were obviously wrong.

Last spring we moved DW's IRA from her former megabank employer "wealth management" department to Schwab, transferring all the assets in kind. This has hopelessly confused Quicken, so I don't even look at its numbers any more. They are completely la-la land.

Caveat Emptor.

 

[audreyh1]

Because quicken takes the YTD number and annualized it. I checked this by comparing what it was showing me for VTI and what the total return was for that ETF. If you don't change the date to 12/31, it will give you the wrong number.

The ROI calculation is not annualized. It’s just a straight % return over any given time period.

 

[Cpadave]

So here is how I have checked quicken performance vs actual. I took one ETF where I had no sales or buys during the year. For example, IXUS. Using fidelity, it shows the total YTD return for that ETF as -7.47%. If I use the quicken performance number as YTD without adjusting it to 12/31/18, it shows total return of -9.3%. However if I change the date to 12/31/2018, it shows -7.45%, which is very close to Fidelity number.

One thing I was not sure if there was new purchases during the year. If quicken can calculate the number correctly, I compared quicken numbers to the 1, 3 year performance number on my portfolio and it was pretty close to it. So I think quicken number can be reliable.

 

[OldShooter]

... I think quicken number can be reliable.

Agreed. I have seen Quicken numbers that seem to be correct, but not all of them and not all of the time. In fact, it may be that Quicken gets it right in simple situations like your test, but when things get more complicated it falls on its nose. It's really the worst kind of bug because for me it means that I can't trust anything it says. YMMV of course.

 

[pb4uski]

Same here... for some reason it has a lot of trouble calculating money leaving the ring fence or even being transferred between accounts within the ring fence.

My withdrawals are only from my online savings account, which is part of my retirement assets... but when I include that account in a Quicken performance report I get garbage results compared to XIRR calculation. I can see that online savings account is the problem because when I sort the performance report by account, that account has a nonsensical return (I know it only returns 1.5-2%). Also, even though I converted ny Roth from a fund to a brokerage account on the first business day of January, it totally throws Quicken for a loop.