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TheDumbMoney (59.62)

IRA So Far 2011 -- And Plea For Help

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December 07, 2011 – Comments (8) | RELATED TICKERS: SPY

So the IRA portion of my self-invested funds is currently up 9.03% YTD, which is thomping the S&P, which is up a little over 1%.  Who knows how it will end for the year, but it's clear I'm having a better year than John Paulson is.  I have not yet tried to calculate my returns on my non-IRA invested funds, but I'm working on it: my gut is that my cumulative 2011 returns are similar to holding the S&P, but a few percentage points better. 

I am also working on a google docs spreadsheet that will publicly account for ALL of my performance, both on my existing portfolio, and on all stocks I have ever bought and sold, going back to the nineties.  This is, needless to say, taking awhile.  One reason it takes so long is that I have to input a bajillion (well, four per year) reinvested dividends on XOM and MO, which I have owned for over a decade.  I also have to build in all of my dividend reinvestments as positions to compare to the S&P from that reinvestment date.  I'm also trying to figure out a way to incorporate the value of my dividends that I did not reinvest.  Everything is going to be live-updating using Google finance stock tickers. 

The only really annoying thing is that for every stock purchase and sale I have to manually look up the S&P closing price on that date (since I'm comparing every single holding period to the S&P during that holding period).  That is a major b!tch.  So if anyone can give me a Google docs and/or excel formula that will auto-populate a cell with the S&P closing price on a particular date, please divulge!!

8 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On December 07, 2011 at 9:23 PM, whereaminow (77.67) wrote:

DTAF,

If you can download the data into another worksheet, you can use the index/match function to auto-populate, otherwise you are looking at writing a macro.

Index/Match is a spreadsheet wonk's best friend.

http://www.mrexcel.com/articles/excel-vlookup-index-match.php

Skip Vlookup, it demands perfection!  Just go with the easy to use.

Smartmoney.com will let you download closing prices for 8000 or so stocks, but it's a $60/yr service if I remember correctly.

Hope that helps.

David

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#2) On December 07, 2011 at 10:14 PM, mattm712 (< 20) wrote:

DTAF, it might not be the same thing you're looking for, but the way I do it is from the following link:

 http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2005/07/12/keep-track-of-your-returns.aspx

I thought this method was kind of neat, basically making your account a "mutual fund of you."  Rather than compare to the S&P500 over the time period, I've been comparing to a total stock market index (specifically, Vanguard's VTI).  I doubt however that VTI has been around as long as you've been investing since you mention the '90s.  S&P might be the way to go.

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#3) On December 08, 2011 at 10:22 AM, TheDumbMoney (59.62) wrote:

Thanks to you both.

Any other thoughts from people?

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#4) On December 08, 2011 at 1:26 PM, MegaShort (99.95) wrote:

Have you thought about using a website like covestor to track returns?  It can't do past returns but you can start now.

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#5) On December 08, 2011 at 2:18 PM, Jbay76 (< 20) wrote:

What about using Quicken Deluxe?

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#6) On December 08, 2011 at 5:58 PM, TheDumbMoney (59.62) wrote:

Hi Mega, covestor costs money and I am a cheap f^ck.  If I can build an adequate spreadsheet that's my first choice.

Jbay76, I was not aware I could use Quicken to track portfolio returns, I have always thought of it more as a personal finance thing relating to my bank balance and bills, etc.  I'll look into that.

Thanks again, all.  My holy grail would be a code I can use in a google docs spreadsheet that auto-populates the field.  Part of the reason I want to use google docs is so I can publish all of my returns publicly, constantly, in real-time, as a continued way of increasing my accountability, especially to myself.

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#7) On December 12, 2011 at 6:29 PM, truleuneek (< 20) wrote:

Not into Google Docs at all, but I remembered reading something similar a while back so I searched for it.

http://www.oldschoolvalue.com/blog/investment-tools/investment-tracking-spreadsheet/

That help at all?

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#8) On December 13, 2011 at 5:22 PM, TheDumbMoney (59.62) wrote:

truleuneek, NICE, I think that may be it.  I was looking for the way to get an historical price.  THANK YOU.

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