Understanding Returns

[lawman]

Someone please help me out here. GLD shows a closing price of $191.51 on 3/8/22.. YTD daily return shows -1.52%. On performance page the YTD shows -7.14%.. March 9, 2021 close shows 160.84..All the listed performance values indicate a negative return yet the chart shows significant gains..Can someone help me understand the apparent discrepancies? Thanks

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GLD/performance?p=GLD

 

[OldShooter]

I'm too lazy to look at the details, but you should make sure that you understand the difference in "return" based on price changes and "total return", which includes dividends and interest. Return based on price changes alone is a totally meaningless number to an investor. Mixing these two in an analysis may be the cause of your confusion.

Total return over short periods is also problematic for assets that don't pay interest and dividends on a very frequent basis. A total return number for a period where dividends were paid will look quite different than total return for a similar length period that did not include dividend payments.

 

[SecondCor521]

Someone please help me out here. GLD shows a closing price of $191.51 on 3/8/22.. YTD daily return shows -1.52%. On performance page the YTD shows -7.14%.. March 9, 2021 close shows 160.84..All the listed performance values indicate a negative return yet the chart shows significant gains..Can someone help me understand the apparent discrepancies? Thanks

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GLD/performance?p=GLD

YTD would normally be from 1/1/2022 through today.

You mention 3/9/2021, which would normally be thought of as a one year chart.

Looking at the historical data, though, GLD does seem to have appreciated on both a YTD and a 1Y basis. Not sure why Yahoo! Finance is showing negative performance numbers at the link you gave.

It doesn't seem to be due to dividends or other income as @OldShooter suggests, since GLD doesn't appear to pay any of those.

:shrug:

If I really cared, I'd go look at the original source, which is probably some SPDR ETF website somewhere. I've seen what appeared to be very wrong information on Google finance before; it wouldn't surprise me if Yahoo! Finance had similar issues from time to time.

 

[RunningBum]

YTD is "Year to date", meaning since 1/1/2022. Not one year.

One year return might be as of the end of the last month, so it might be 2/28/21 to 2/28/22.

 

[anethum]

There's apparantly a bug on the yahoo finance site. If you look at GLD on google finance, it says GLD is up 23.18 YTD, an increase of 13.77% YTD.

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GLD:NYSEARCA?window=YTD

 

[lawman]

There's apparantly a bug on the yahoo finance site. If you look at GLD on google finance, it says GLD is up 23.18 YTD, an increase of 13.77% YTD.

https://www.google.com/finance/quote/GLD:NYSEARCA?window=YTD

Thanks..I went to Schwab research page and it too made sense..Thanks!

 

[disneysteve]

There's apparantly a bug on the yahoo finance site.

This came up in another conversation recently.


If you want to see the performance of a mutual fund or ETF, it is always best to look at the fund company's own site. The various other financial sites may or may not be accurate.


I've also seen that Yahoo will give return figures without referencing the period for which that return applies. For example, it will say the 1 year return but not tell you the date range. There may be a big difference if you're looking at the 1/1/21 to 1/1/22 number vs. the 3/8/21 to 3/8/22 number.