Total balance with total return does not add up at all and none of my portfolio returns don’t add up either.
Do you have the same?
It is very confusing.
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Not much info to work on. What are you comparing your numbers with? Are you adding the correct numbers? How large a discrepancy? Are you accounting for cash?
For example my total balance is £20,001.16 and total return is -£18.84.
I’ve invested £20,000.00 in total.
Dividends accounted? Or all ETFs you have are accumulation?
I have a mixture of acc and dist. If I understand correctly, all should be included in total balance and total return.
So you haven’t invested exactly 20000, but rather 20000+dividends. Then you total balance can be above 20000 and yet you may be down -18.84.
InvestEngine reports “time-weighted rate of return”, as explained in this post: How does InvestEngine calculate returns?
The most straightforward method to calculate returns is “(end value minus start value) divided by start value”. This method would be valid if you buy all your ETFs on one particular day, and then look at your returns at a later date, with no transactions occurring in between.
But most of our portfolios are messier than that. Cash goes into and out of portfolios (through deposits, withdrawals and dividends) and ETFs get bought/sold at different times. The time-weighted return tries to account for this.
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Got it. I forgot that I got £20 for referring another user.
20000 + 20 - 18.84 = 20001.16
Silly me 
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