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Your Performance page helps you understand just how your portfolio of investments is doing as well as how the overall market and your own activity have affected your balance over time.
Your return was calculated using the Personal Rate of Return (money-weighted) calculation. This calculation is based on a number of factors, including changes in the value of the assets you own, dividends and interest you earned, fees that you may have paid, and the size and timing of your additions and/or withdrawals. See the What does this number mean? tutorial to learn more.
Investment
(time-weighted) Rate of Return is commonly used to evaluate the
performance of a fund or an investment manager. Investment Rate of
Return measures the performance of the underlying investments,
including dividends, interest, and fees, but does not take the timing
and size of your individual trades into consideration.
Personal
(money-weighted) Rate of Return is used to evaluate the combined
investment decisions of both the investment manager and the individual
investor. Personal Rate of Return measures the performance of the
underlying investments, including dividends, interest, and fees, as
well as the size and timing of your individual trades.
No, customers cannot elect the calculation methodology.
The Total Portfolio Return calculation includes all of your Fidelity Brokerage accounts as well as any other accounts that you have access to view or trade. Workplace Savings Accounts, Brokerage Flex, Brokerage Link, Insurance/Annuity, and advisory accounts are all excluded from the Total Portfolio Return.
Unfortunately, this feature cannot be added upon user request at this time. Fidelity recognizes the value in providing a combined return number that includes all of your Fidelity accounts. Fidelity is actively pursuing a solution for performance reporting that would allow us to achieve this objective.
Annualized Return shows how much your investments have grown or declined -- on average – over each year of a multi-year period. Cumulative Return shows how much your investments have grown or declined -- in total – over a multi-year period.
Yes, all fees are displayed, in aggregate, in the fees column. All fees that can be charged to your Brokerage account are included in the return calculation. Return figures reflect any fees paid as well as any management fees, bank charges, and account fees.
At this time, Fidelity’s performance reporting solution does not include position-level performance. See the research page on Fidelity.com to analyze market performance for individual positions.
Withdrawals are not treated as a decline in your return, but will decrease the basis for your return calculation. The money-weighted methodology, or Personal Rate of Return, takes into account the timing and size of deposits and withdrawals. See the What does this number mean? tutorial to learn more.
Performance Reporting for SPS account is consistent with the treatment on customer statements. Refer to customer statement for change in investment value and additional details on SPS transaction activity.
Returns may be skewed due to 1) all prior appreciation being realized at the time of exercise or vesting and 2) the “acquisition cost” or Performance Start date that is used for a particular company stock plan transaction. Your performance impact will differ based on transaction type.
| SPS Transaction | Performance Start Date |
| Stock Option Plans | Grant price |
| Stock Appreciation Rights | Grant price (if shares) or Fair Market Value (if cash) |
| Employee Stock Purchase Plans | Discounted Purchase Price |
| Restricted Stock Awards | $0 acquisition cost |
| Restricted Stock Units | $0 (if shares) or Fair Market Value (if cash) |
| Stock Swaps | Fair Market Value |
Please note that performance in the Brokerage account for Stock Plan transactions is measured from date of grant through time of distribution (Sale or Vesting) to Brokerage account. Subsequent Performance Reporting is captured in the Brokerage Account.
Significance of SPS activity on performance will depend on the size of the SPS activity as compared to the remainder of the account or portfolio - the larger the amount of other assets, the smaller the impact and vice-versa.
The standard performance calculation (your “Personal Rate of Return”) uses transaction data differently than your monthly statement and may give different results. See below for examples of differences:
| Transaction | Statement Treatment | Performance Reporting Treatment | Rationale for Difference |
| Pending trades and grants | Valued based on settlement date | Valued based on trade date | Trades placed late in the month may not settle before monthly statements are sent out. To give you an up-to-date rate of return figure, performance reporting on Fidelity.com uses the price on the trade date rather than waiting for the security to settle. |
| Externally paid fees (exclusive to managed accounts) | Ignored on statement | Included as a fee and an offsetting deposit | Fees impact returns because they negatively impact earnings. In order to provide you with an accurate summary of all fees paid on your account, we included externally paid fees as part of the total fees along with an offsetting bookkeeping deposit. |
| Penny stocks | Statements carry prices to as many decimal places as needed | Prices are rounded to the nearest whole penny | The performance calculation rounds prices to the nearest penny, and small discrepancies in values may result. |
In order for Fidelity to provide you with as much historical performance information as possible, a historical conversion process was used to load transaction, market value, and pricing data. This information is used for approximating returns for periods that begin prior to October 31, 2008. After October 31, 2008, daily data is being used in the returns calculations. As a result, there can be differences between the way that transactions are treated before and after October 31, 2008. The differences are as follows:
| Transaction | Historical Conversion Treatment | Post-Conversion Performance Reporting Treatment | Rationale for Difference |
| Fixed Income Interest Accrual and Payments | Cash Basis Methodology - Interest earnings on fixed income securities is reported as income and added to market value upon the payment date, rather than reporting a portion of the income each month the security is held. | Accrual Basis Methodology - Interest is accrued and reported for each month that the security is held. The pro-rated income is included in the performance calculation. | The accrual method is appropriate for Performance Reporting purposes because it accounts for growth of the asset over time rather than attributing all growth in a single month at time of payment. It was not possible to calculate accruals historically given the complexity of the calculation, so the cash basis methodology was employed instead. |
| Deposits and Withdrawals | Deposits and withdrawals were aggregated into a net monthly deposit occurring on the 15th of each month and net monthly withdrawal occurring on the 16th of each month. | Deposits and withdrawals are aggregated daily. | Using net monthly deposit and withdrawal totals is a common approach for providing the required cash flow information for performance reporting. This approach was required to provide as much historical information as possible |
Benchmarks assist in evaluating the performance of your investments. To put your return in context, it is important to compare it to the performance of similar investments.
Your benchmark should represent the segments of the overall market that you’re most heavily invested in. The Performance page lets you choose from 20 single market and blended benchmarks. If your account is made up primarily of municipal bonds you may consider a single market index like the Lehman Bros. Municipal Bond Index. However, if your account is 85% stocks and 15% bonds, consider selecting the “Aggressive Growth” blended benchmark. Blended benchmarks combine different market indexes and can often be a better fit for your account. Fidelity customers can leverage the Portfolio Analysis tool to determine their current asset allocation. See the How do I evaluate my returns? tutorial to learn more.
Several default benchmarks returns are available when expanding the Compare your returns to the market section at the bottom of the performance page. You can also add or modify benchmarks by clicking Change/Add Market Indices.
It’s often difficult to outperform benchmarks, since they don’t include any fees. Also, keep in mind that benchmarks do not reflect any personal trades or transactions. The size and timing of your trades can have a significant impact on your rate of return, but will not influence the performance of a benchmark.
The relevant PAS blended benchmark is automatically displayed when viewing a PAS or PPS account. It would not be accurate to view a different blended benchmark as it would not match the strategy of your account.
The first thing you should do is ensure your asset allocation supports your investment strategy, then make the appropriate adjustments if it does not. Fidelity offers several alternatives to help you manage asset allocation, or we can do it for you.
A broad variety of factors affect the performance of your account, including your asset allocation, concentration of holdings, the timing and size of your trades, and overall market volatility.
To get a better idea of the changes to your account value, review the graph and table at the top of the Performance page labeled “Balances Over Time.” This information provides a more detailed breakdown of changes such as account deposits and withdrawals and investment gain or loss.
Returns for the previous month will be available by the 10th business day of each month.
Not at this time. Performance calculations are only published on a monthly basis.
At the end of the first month in which the account was opened, at which time accounts will have been added to the performance database.
Since Inception returns are calculated from the date we added your account information to the performance database, first created on January 31, 2003. If you opened your account prior to January 2003, the inception date for performance reporting is January 31, 2003.
An account must be opened for a full month before it can be included in the portfolio return calculation.
Customers with three or more accounts have the ability to create their own performance reporting account groupings. To do this, select the Create/Edit Custom Account Groups link at the top of the Performance Overview page. Next, provide a name for the Account Group and select the accounts to be added to the group. Performance for the group that you have created will be updated overnight and made available the following day. The new group can then be found in the dropdown menu at the top of the Performance page.
Select the Create/Edit Custom Account Groups link at the top of the Performance Overview page. Customers can modify existing account groups by locating the appropriate account group and selecting Edit. Users can also remove accounts from a Performance reporting group. This change will take effect overnight and be available the following day. Note: The default composite which includes all of the customer’s accounts cannot be edited.
Purged accounts are accounts that have been removed due to two years of inactivity and a balance of zero. . Hidden accounts are accounts which customers have decided not to display on Fidelity.com. Purged accounts will remain in the applicable account groups, as the historical data activity in these accounts could have a significant impact on the past performance of the account grouping. Hidden accounts, however, will be removed from all account groupings when the returns are refreshed the following month.
Hidden accounts are accounts that customers have decided not to display on Fidelity.com. Hidden accounts will be removed from applicable account groupings when the returns are refreshed the following month.
Yes, click Print at the top of each page to obtain a printer-friendly version.
Yes, the performance returns by period chart as well as the performance chart can be downloaded into a spreadsheet.
Performance calculations displayed here are not included in your monthly statement at this time. Fidelity recognizes the importance and value of customer statements. We are constantly exploring opportunities to improve our customer statements and the inclusion of performance reporting information is under consideration.