Investment Performance
How Forbidden Finance measures investment returns (simple, time-weighted, and money-weighted), records dividends and interest, and compares your allocation with your own targets.
Overview
Your investments have a value today, but the more useful question is how they have done. Forbidden Finance shows the return on your portfolio and on each holding, the dividends and interest they have paid, and how your mix of investments compares with the targets you set.
Available on: Pro and Premium. Premium adds lot-based figures for each holding: realized and unrealized gains, time-weighted return, and money-weighted return.
Three Ways to Measure a Return
| Measure | What it answers | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Simple return | How much your holdings are worth compared with what you paid for them, using your total cost basis. | Portfolio and each holding (Pro and Premium) |
| Time-weighted return | How the investment itself performed over a period, with the timing of your deposits and sales taken out. Calculated with the Modified Dietz method. | Each holding (Premium, with purchase lots) |
| Money-weighted return | What your own money earned, including when you added or took it out. Shown as an annual rate (XIRR). | Each holding (Premium, with purchase lots) |
A time-weighted return is useful for comparing an investment with how it was supposed to perform. A money-weighted return is closer to your personal experience, because buying more just before a drop counts against you.
Portfolio Performance
On the Assets tab, the portfolio performance summary shows:
- Total return: the simple return across your investments with a cost basis on file.
- Coverage: for example, Covers 92% of investment value. Holdings without a cost basis are left out of the return and counted in a note, so one missing figure doesn't skew the result.
- Interest and dividends: income this year and over the trailing 12 months, plus your most recent payments.
- Investable vs retirement: your investable net worth next to the value held in each retirement account type, such as 401(k), IRA, Roth IRA, and HSA.
Holding Performance
Open a holding to see its Performance section. Choose a period: YTD, 1Y, Since purchase, or Custom with your own start and end dates.
Each figure shows the method behind it. When a figure can't be worked out for the period, it shows Not available with the reason, so you are never looking at a made-up number. Common reasons:
| Caption | What it means |
|---|---|
| No cost basis on file. | Add one in the cost-basis editor to see a simple return. |
| Needs per-lot tracking, part of the Premium plan. | Lot-based figures need Premium. |
| No purchase lots recorded for this holding. | Add the lots behind the position to see lot-based figures. |
| The recorded lots do not cover the whole position. | Some shares have no lot, so the figure would be incomplete. |
| The holding was not owned during this period. | Pick a period when you held it. |
| No price on file at the period start (or end). | A price is needed at both ends of the period. |
| Needs at least two dated cash flows of opposite sign. | A money-weighted return needs money going in and coming out (or a current value). |
| Income in other currencies is left out. | Income paid in another currency is not included in this figure. |
On Premium, purchase lots also give you realized gain for sales in the period, unrealized gain on what you still hold, and income in period. When a linked brokerage reports a sale, your oldest lots are used first and the realized gain is recorded.
Interest and Dividends
Each holding has an Interest & dividends section.
- Synced income: dividends, interest, and capital gain distributions reported by a linked brokerage appear automatically, marked with where they came from.
- Record income: for holdings you track by hand, tap Record income, choose Dividend, Interest, or Capital gain distribution, and enter the amount and the date it was paid.
Recorded income feeds the portfolio's income figures and each holding's income in period.
Allocation Targets
Allocation targets let you say what share of your portfolio you intend each asset type to hold, then see how far the real mix has moved from it.
Open Allocation targets
On the Assets tab, open the allocation view and tap Set targets (or Edit targets).
Enter your targets
Enter a percentage for each asset type you want to target. The editor shows the running total, and targets have to add up to 100%.
Save
Tap Save targets. The allocation view now shows each asset type's share vs your target, and its drift in percentage points.
Drift compares you with your own targets only. There is no benchmark or model portfolio behind it. If you set a target for an asset type you don't hold, it appears under Targeted but not held. To remove every target, tap Clear all targets.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my portfolio return leave out some holdings?
A simple return needs a cost basis. Holdings without one are left out, and the coverage line tells you how much of your investment value the return covers.
Why are the time-weighted and money-weighted returns empty?
They need Premium and the purchase lots behind the holding. Without lots, the section explains what is missing.
Which cost-basis method do the returns use?
The method set on each holding: FIFO or average cost for stocks, ETFs, and bonds, and LIFO for crypto. See Cost Basis Methods.
Related Articles
Cost Basis Methods
FIFO, average cost, and LIFO for crypto.Tax Lot Export
Export your lots as a CSV (Premium).Account Buckets
How retirement money is grouped by tax treatment (Premium).Dashboard Cards
The Investments and Allocation cards.Need more help? Email us at [email protected] and we will get back to you.