About Period-to-date report: The
Period-to-date report of GlobeAdvisor provides information on how your portfolio has
performed on a one-day, month-to-date (MTD) and year-to-date (YTD) basis. The report is
updated once per trading day, at approximately 8 p.m. EST. For each of the three time
periods, it shows the actual dollar return and the return on investment on a
holding-by-holding basis and for the portfolio as a whole. For example, the two columns
under MTD show how many dollars you have actually gained or lost since the last day of the
previous month for each holding, and the return on investment for each.
GlobeAdvisor relies on the industry accepted method of computing investment return
which is based on the internal rate of return (IRR) algorithm. The rate of return
calculated by IRR is the interest rate corresponding to a zero net present value of a
series of cash flows. According to the Association of Investment Management Research,
"the recommended measurement of performance for presentation of the performance of a
single private equity investment is the investments internal rate of return."
The rate of return is measured over the specific period in question. It is not annualized,
and thus permits a direct comparison between your return and the return of popular
benchmarks.
The dollar gain/loss computation takes into account any transactions that may
have occurred over the three time periods. Computing the % return on an investment
using the internal rate of return method is somewhat more complicated. It depends on what
the value of an investment was at the beginning and end of a time period, and also on any
cash flows that may have occurred over that time period, and exactly when they occurred.
For example, suppose you owned 100 units of a fund worth $10.00 each on the first day of a
month, and still held those 100 units on the 21st of a month when the unit
value is $10.50. You can deduce that your month-to-date return on investment on the 21st
is 5%. In this case, your return is exactly the same as the return of the fund itself.
However, if during that period you bought 100 more units on the 10th at 10.40
and sold them on the 15th at 10.20, you clearly lost money on that transaction. The
computation of return using the internal rate of return method takes this loss into
account, and your return would be different from (and less than) the return on the fund
overall.
Because returns calculated using the internal rate of return method take into account
buys and sells occurring during the period of the calculation, returns on the Performance
report will differ from the simple returns shown on Fund/Stock reports or on the
GlobeAdvisor Standard report. Technically-minded users can gain more insight into the
workings of IRR by looking at the help information available on IRR in Microsoft's Excel
spreadsheet product.
- Name: Name of the investment. Click on a fund name to view its profile. Fund
profiles provide key facts about the fund including a distribution report, top holdings
and investment objectives. Click on a stock symbol (when underlined) to view its corporate
snapshot. These snapshots provide a brief description of the company's area(s) of
concentration, its main sources of revenue, its annual financials and industry
competitors.
- # Units/Shares: Total number of units held at the report date.
- Market Value ($): Number of units/shares multiplied by current unit/share price.
- One Day / $ Gain/Loss: Market value as of the date shown on the report minus
market value for the previous business day.
- One Day / % Return: Percent return of the holding (as of the date shown on the
report) since the previous business day.
- MTD / $ Gain/Loss: The gain or loss on your investment since the close of the
last business day of the previous month.
- MTD / % Return: Percent return of the holding since the close of the last
business day of the previous month. If you have bought or sold units of this holding
during this period of time, the calculation of gain/loss takes these transactions into
account using the internal rate of return (IRR) algorithm.
- YTD / $ Gain/Loss: The gain or loss on your investment since the close of the
last business day of the previous year.
- YTD / % Return: Percent return of holding since the beginning of the year. If you
have bought or sold units of this holding during this period of time, the calculation of
gain/loss takes these transactions into account using the internal rate of return (IRR)
algorithm.
- Trans/Chart/News: Click the green symbol shown in this column to display a report
showing all transactions for a particular holding. Click the chart symbol in a row for an
individual holding to generate a chart for that holding. Click the chart symbol in the
blue Total row to generate a chart for your entire portfolio. Click the news symbol to
view all available news for the company.