Annual Total Returns

I'm afraid we'll need more information in order to help you. What returns in Quicken are you matching to Vanguard, and how significant are the differences?

And do you have at least one full year's worth of transactions in your accounts beginning at least earlier than 9/30/04, and you've got your options set to report on a single year's worth of investment transactions limited to the same single security that you're comparing that number to the Vanguard number for. In one case from me, for example, the Vanguard website states a one year return of their 500 Index fund ending 10/31/05 to be 8.6%. My Quicken Performance Report (IRR, I believe) reports (which includes my reinvesting dividends plus an account fee maintenance withdrawal) a value of $8.47%. Close enough in my book, and if I take out the maintenance fee that was deducted during the time frame, maybe that alone would bring me closer to the 8.6% yield Vanguard claims.

So check your data points and time line.

I have several years of data and the errors are to large to be ignored. For instance, Vanguard European Stock Index Investor Shares shows 9.58% in the "Avg. Annual Return (%) 1-Year" column of a portfolio view. Vanguard's "Performance Profile, Autumn, 2005" shows 24.37%.

New info: I just noted that it doesn't matter what date is put in the "As Of" box! Quicken is severely broken.

When people say "Quicken is broken", it's almost always the data, not Quicken.

What do the transactions for this holding look like? Run an Investment Performance report for this holding for the period in question. This will give you the detail to determine whether Quicken is right or not.

I don't know what to say. Once you have the Investment Report screen up with results, ensure your date range in the upper left shows the last 12 months, or what have you. I've modified the date in another try, and certainly my customized report where all I report on is Vanguard Idx 500 spread across multiple accounts certainly DO change the investment returns based on the time frame selected.

Again, you sure you're restricting the security to only the single one in question?

It is very likely that you are comparing apples to oranges.

You need to know what method Vanguard is using to calculate return and what time frame they are using.

The QW ROI is a very simple: [(MktVal/BeginVal - 1)*100] and you get different answers depending on the time frame you choose.

QW also has an IRR [Internal Rate of Return] calculation under the Investment Performance menu. The QW Help file gives a good write-up on this.

There are other methods and many advocates for each method. Each method has its' pros and cons. Pick one you understand and use it for all comparisons. You can not mix methods; e.g., you can't compare one securities' ROI with another securities' IRR.

You're on a different screen. Go to the Investing Center. Select "Portfolio", Quotes view, Group by Security. Add the "Avg Annual Return..." column to the display.

Pick one of your securities and look at the number in the aforementioned column. Now, click on the "As Of" box and type a "y", or something to change the date. Hit Enter to be certain the date change gets seen. Did your value change?

I've modified the date in another try, and

Stubby - ah ha! Yes, I totally didn't see your 'Portfolio View' comment in your very first question. Sorry. I always thought you were referring to the PERFORMACE investment report. You're right, that is not changing. But let me offer that perhaps those figures are not actually CALCULATED by Q, but are rather downloaded perhaps from the server or something like Morningstar? I wonder if that's true; I suppose I could invent a dummy security, populate it with some dummy transactions, and see. But I'm too lazy to give that a shot. I always use the IRR reports.

So now, let me ask *you* a question - did you run the Investment Reports looking at the IRR return to see what that looks like restricted to a year and your security in question? Is it close to your Vanguard-provided data?

I gave up trying to use the IRR column (it's actually label YTD % or something) because it was unreliable and not coordinated with published figures. Quicken presents itself as an investment management tool but until its output number match those published by Vanguard, Fidelity, etc it is USELESS.

Can anyone tell us about MONEY, GNUCASH, and other similar programs?

I think we're coming close to the end of this thread!

Well, like I said before, if you frame the restrictions on the Investment Report correctly, and have a complete history of a particular security or securities that run more than a 12 month period, I think the IRR report (yes, you're right about the label on the heading) is still very useful (at least to me). One thing is that it DOES do (again, to me as I had previously posted) is it does track to published year results somewhat closely. But more importantly to me, it is based on my OWN set of transactions and figures. Everything that is posted in mutual fund material is all theoretical (minus redemption charges, sales charges, this and that, etc.) and sometimes does not relate to my OWN figures. So I think it does provide some good comparisons, esp. within my own set of mutual funds and stocks.

Peace.