please, a little help from slide ruler guy

[redduck]

I bought some TIPS (TIP) via an ETF. I have no idea how they/I'm doing.

All below have been rounded off:

Bought $11,000 of TIPs on Jan. 1, 2004.

I have received $2800 in dividends through Jan. 1, 2009.

Can anyone out there figure out what sort of interest I'm earning on my TIPs?

Thank you.

[73ss454]

I don't know if your taking out the dividends but it looks to me like about 5.1%

[redduck]

Thanks, 73ss454...

I was hoping that someone would reply to this thread. And, the dividends are in cash.

[Hal3]

If you go to Yahoo Finance and enter the symbol for your fund you can get some of the information you desire. Yahoo charts are nice because there is a little slider at the bottom so you can adjust your start and end points. This will give you a chart of what the fund price has been doing over the selected time period. Thus, you can see how the value of the fund itself has changed.

Yahoo Finance charts are nice because it allows you to set arbitrary start and end points with the slider whereas most charts just give you the option of picking the last day, month, year, etc.

They will also give you the current yield which is a good number to know for now.

The yield has varied over the time period you are talking about.

An exact calculation would need to take into consideration how much was paid in dividends at each interval along the way.

You can also get a rough approximation using a calculator like this:

Return Rate (CAGR) Calculator

You would enter a present value of 11000 and a future value of 13800 and years of 5. This gives you an interest rate of 4.64.

This calculation assumes that you leave the interest payments in the pot to gather compound interest. Since you did not your actual interest rate will be higher.

You can also just divide your total interest payments by 5 and get 560.
560/11000 = 5.09 % = 5.1% which is the number you have already.

This is a stone-cold average but will not recognize ups and downs or clue you in to any trends.

I hope this helps.

[JOHNNIE36]

Quote:

Originally Posted by redduck I bought some TIPS (TIP) via an ETF. I have no idea how they/I'm doing. All below have been rounded off: Bought $11,000 of TIPs on Jan. 1, 2004. I have received $2800 in dividends through Jan. 1, 2009. Can anyone out there figure out what sort of interest I'm earning on my TIPs? Thank you.

Another way to calculate:
$2800 is what percent of $11000 and over what time frame?
$2800 divided by $1000 = 25.45% divided by 5 years= .0509 or 5.09%

[redduck]

Hmmn, I received three (3) replies, all helpful. And, all three (3) who replied have numbers in their screen names. Coincidence? I think not. (Whoops, that sounds like it might be a straight line). Anyhow, maybe if I changed my name to redduck 82147 (hopefully no one else is using that name) I might be able to figure out rates of interest just like you guys.