Historical Investment Performance

BGM

Hi,

I'm looking for somewhere (website i guess, paid or otherwise) that i can enter some type of investment i.e. Fund X, or GOOG etc. and get back the performance between two specific dates.

The reason I'm doing this is because i want to compare how my investments did 'last year' whatever that year is defined as..

I've tried to do it myself, but websites such as morningstar, and fundslibrary, trustnet, etc. all seem to come back with different % rates for what i consider to be the same period.. annoying

Ultimately all i want is:

Holding: My Stock X
StartDate: 1-Apr-2013
EndDate: 1-Apr-2014
Performance: -1.1%

I just can't seem to find a reliable source, that i can corroborate with another reliable source!

JohnRo

They should all return an identical number? Stock prices are universal.

Example of Murray International

FROM : 1 Apr 2013
TO : 1 Apr 2014

RESULT : -1.47%

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MYI.L#symbol=MYI.L;range=1d

westy22

Well, Google Finance tells me that MYI dropped by -12.31% between 1 Apr 13 and 1 Apr 14!

westy22

I notice that MYI did in fact have a share price of £11.78 on 28 Mar 13 - then fell to £10.72 on 1 Apr 13 - then went back to £11.93 on 2 Apr 13. It looks to me like there was a massive blip (as sometimes happens with share pricing) over a couple of days and therefore the result will be based on whether Google / Yahoo etc are using the 1 Apr blip price as the starting point.

What a difference a day makes!

BGM

and almost immediately we have an issue

take this example.. i hold a fund "BlackRock UK Special Situations Class D Accumulation" with Aviva, this is what they tell me about it: http://www.fundslibrary.co.uk/flweb/FrameLogin/Transfer/DataOnline/PdfFactsheet/aviva.wrap/aviva_wrap/GB00B3V1C060?LoginSite=aviva.wrap&LoginUsername=avivawrap

as you can see on that pdf, the chart shows a nice upward trend, but i want some detailed numbers on what is actually going on so i dig a little deeper. Half way down the pdf page 1 it says 'year on year performance' cool, so it's improved 9.2% between 30/04/2013 and 30/04/2014, this is what it looks like to me anyway.... but i'm not certain so to corroborate this number i google the fund..

on morningstar, a reputable site, we have this: http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=F00000HHAW&tab=1

there is a clear chart just below the main chart named 'annual returns' and it's split by year... so this must surely mean the annual year on year return by year? i look at the chart and see what i assume is up to the 30/04/2014 in the final column... it reads -3.25, is this a percentage? is it cumulative, is it YTD... wow, ok, so i can't verify my numbers there either...

ok, so lets take a look at ft.com: http://funds.ft.com/uk/Tearsheet/Performance?s=GB00B3V1C060:GBX

here we can see that for 2013 and YTD the figures more-or-less match up to morningstar, so that means that the morningstar figures in the final column must be YTD.. and the numbers in the other columns are performance over calendar years i guess?? ok, that's semi-useful, it's better than nothing... but it still does not match my aviva product sheet..

so, i decide to go straight to the horses mouth, and just lookup black rock itself: http://www.blackrock.co.uk/public/literature/fact-sheet/blackrock-uk-special-situations-fund-a-acc-gb-en-ind-factsheet.pdf

here we can see a significantly more detailed review, and the chart half way down the first page shows "Discrete Performance Over 12 Month Periods to the Last Quarter End" and a value for 31-03-2013 to 31-03-2014 of 9.7% ok, great so they are kinda close, but don't actually match... but i guess blackrocks own sheet should be the best i can get??

i notice that these numbers are being sourced from morningstar... so i scoot over to their site again, and add up the discrete quarterly performance for FY13/14 and it actually totals 10.47%!!, ok, this is YET ANOTHER another number but count to 10....

scrolling further down the blackrock pdf file i notice a tiny footnote table entitled "Unit Class Performance 30 April 2014" on the last page showing the different class options of this fund.. class D is what i'm interested in and it does actually match (sort of!) to my morningstar calculation, the pdf is showing 10.5% and so i finally conclude, that this number is in actual fact the number i am searching for... at long last

*sigh*

please, please, please correct me if i am being dense here... i'm an intelligent guy i work in the financial sector (albeit not investments) so i *should* be able to work this simple thing out... but with so many different versions of the truth it's sending me around the bend!

no doubt, i'll have another, different, merry little journey around the internet with other holdings from different providers.. for now though, looks like morningstar might be my go-to source

JohnRo

Is this an Aviva pension fund?

http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/SecuritySearchResults.aspx?search=aviva%20blackrock%20uk%20special%20situations&type=

BGM

JohnRo wrote: »

Is this an Aviva pension fund?

http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/SecuritySearchResults.aspx?search=aviva%20blackrock%20uk%20special%20situations&type=

No, it's a S&S ISA.

I do also hold this in my pension, and the ISIN on both is GB00B3V1C060

http://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/funds/SecuritySearchResults.aspx?type=ALL&search=gb00b3v1c060

Please don't get caught up on this particular holding, I am merely using it as an example to illustrate my frustration about things not matching up

Thanks

bowlhead99

BGM wrote: »

*sigh*

please, please, please correct me if i am being dense here... i'm an intelligent guy i work in the financial sector (albeit not investments) so i *should* be able to work this simple thing out... but with so many different versions of the truth it's sending me around the bend!

no doubt, i'll have another, different, merry little journey around the internet with other holdings from different providers.. for now though, looks like morningstar might be my go-to source

OK, I *think* I can explain, let's see . I'll stay on that example fund for simplicity.

So you have the Class D ACC version of the fund. Let's look at those sources:

Blackrock Factsheet (horse's mouth).
1) Unit Class Performance (D ACC) 31/3/13-31/3/14: 10.5%

2) Discrete performance, 12 months to last quarter end:9.7%

Although it's an April factsheet and 30 April is the last full date for doing the graphs on this sheet, with the particular figures I quoted you'll see they both state that we're looking at one year to March (last quarter end).

The performance given for number 2 is right below a set of charts and tables which are showing the performance of the main retail class, Class A. And Class A is the full fat high fee version (1.5% a year instead of 0.75%) rather than the cheaper class D. Only in the smaller print at the bottom of the general factsheet, where I got number 1 from, does it let you see the Class D returns.

A sidenote here, when you're looking at other fund examples, sometimes the classes haven't all been running the same length of time (e.g. Class D INC hasn't got much old data), so when comparing one fund against another for 5-10 years you might need to just 'pretend' you were using the more expensive retail class that existed for the whole time period.

So in summary, #1 isn't going to be same as #2. We would expect about three quarters of a percent difference, give or take roundings, for the fee difference.

However, we can do a little cross check between Morningstar (Class D factsheet) and Blackrock (multi-class factsheet) at this point.

As you deduced, the 2014-up-to-30April on Morningstar's sheet is only a few months' performance. We should just pull out the annualised figure is to the end of March and compare to the Blackrock factsheet.

If you were over at the Morningstar site for your class D, at bottom of page they quote a figure for Standardised Performance, year to 31 March 14, and say it's 10.52%. Seems right in line with the 10.5% reported by Blackrock, just not rounded down.

And we said, per #2 above, Blackrock was reporting 9.7% for Class A for the 12 months, which we know is the difference in management fees, with the 0.75% extra fee for Class A, on a growing asset value, causing a lower performance.

So at this stage, no inconsistencies so far.

So basically at this point you can say that the Morningstar and Blackrock are consistent with each other, as long as you take care whether you're working with Class A or Class D and you use consistent dates.

Now let's go back to Morningstar class D and add up the last 4 quarterly returns as you tried to do, to get the year performance to March 2014. For this you are looking at calendar quarters from 2013 Q2 to 2014 Q1: -1.27%, +4.78%, +8.38%, -1.42%

So, imagine you had £100 invested and lost 1.27% the first quarter. You get £98.73. Then in the next quarter you gain 4.78% of £98.73 which takes you up to 103.44. Then you get 8.38% on your 103.44 which takes you up to £112.11. Finally you lose 1.42% of the £112.11 leaving you with £110.52.

Therefore if you have done it properly (properly accounting for the compounding, to roll each number forward by that quarter's return, rather than just adding up the 4 declared percentages) you get £110.52 from your £100 investment. That's a return of 10.52% which is exactly what Morningstar gave for the annualised performance of 12 months to 31 March. So, Morningstar are at least being internally consistent with their figures.

So, at this point I am happy that Morningstar's Class D Acc page is internally consistent and consistent with Blackrock's own sheet.

If I go and check it out at another place, FE Trustnet, I can add it to my basket and then review it with various tools, which includes an ability to set a specific date range for graphing. If I do that for March 31 to March 31, bid to bid, income revinvested, it does appear to be in line with the expectation above: a bit over 10% for Class D and a bit under for Class A.

At this point I am happy that FE Trustnet and Morningstar and Blackrock are all singing from the same hymn sheet. And FE Trustnet is Financial Express, and the Aviva sheet says data provided by Financial Express, so hopefully we won't get any issues when we look at that one.

So, on to the Aviva sheet. The first box is performance for last 3m, 6m, 1yr etc up to the very latest day available. Gives 3.7% for 1 year to 23 May.

Second table gives year on year performance for the last month end, 30 April to 30 Apr is 9.2%

If I run these dates on the Trustnet graph I get something that looks pretty much the same as that: just under 4% or just over 9% depending on year to late May versus year to end April.

The Aviva sheet doesn't have any March to March data so it's hard to compare directly with Morningstar and Blackrock but we have already done that via the Trustnet graphs so I would be happy with them all tying up overall.

Finally the FT I don't really use, but it also has a list of historic daily prices (a few months worth) and an interactive charting tool and comparison tool, so I suppose you could look at that too if really needed.
:beer:

BGM

absolutely fantastic post bowlhead99, that was exactly what i was after!

writing that long post of the steps i had gone through really helped me clarify my thoughts on it all and the fact that you took the time to pick out the key things i had done / tried to do and corrected me was really the icing on the cake...

thank you for taking the time, kudos indeed!!