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- A Portfolio Management Worksheet for Money Market Accounts, T-
- Bills, Bonds and Stocks
- By Fred Shipley, Ph.D.
- Computerized Investing
- March/April 1989 - September/October 1989
-
- In managing a portfolio, an investor must keep track of the current
- return, any current or anticipated changes in value, and the
- riskiness of the portfolio. In this article, we provide a template
- to perform these calculations for a diversified portfolio, which
- can include money market funds, T-bills, bonds and stocks. In
- addition, you can update these values over time and provide
- periodic reports to measure performance. This worksheet will track
- annualized returns for the portfolio, considering the irregular
- timing of cash inflows and outflows. It will monitor the riskiness
- of the individual portfolio components. Finally, it will allow you
- to make performance evaluation comparisons with other managed
- portfolios or with the market.
-
- Issues in Performance Measurement
-
- The evaluation of portfolio performance requires an understanding
- of both the returns and the risk in the portfolio. Each of these
- aspects of portfolio performance involves difficulties in
- measurement. For determining returns, a careful understanding of
- the timing of cash inflows and their disposition--either reinvested
- or spent--is critical.
-
- Return on an investment is appropriately measured in terms of its
- realized annually compounded rate of return. This is the return
- that will make the initial portfolio value accumulate to the known
- final portfolio value over the elapsed number of years. It is also
- known as the internal rate of return. Implicit in the use of this
- concept is the presumption that any cash flows generated by the
- investment are reinvested at that internal rate of return. If you
- estimate an annually compounded rate of return for an investment
- and spend any part of the cash flows generated by dividends or
- interest income, your realized rate of return will be lowered. In
- effect, spending a cash dividend is the same as spending principal,
- which reduces the value of the portfolio. This reduction, however,
- must be treated in proportion to the current value of the
- portfolio; therefore, the timing of cash inflows and outflows is
- important. To properly evaluate the change in portfolio return
- over time, the value of the portfolio must be determined every time
- a transaction occurs.
-
- The easiest way to deal with this problem is analogous to the way
- mutual funds use net asset value to determine the number of shares
- an investor buys or sells. At any time, the total value of the
- portfolio is determined and the amount of a purchase or redemption
- is divided by the net asset value per share to determine the number
- of shares in the fund that are bought or sold.
-
- Similarly, we will determine the value of a share in our portfolio
- every time a transaction occurs. The transaction will then have
- the effect of either purchasing or redeeming a number of those
- shares. To keep the values easy to track, we will start with an
- assumed initial portfolio share unit value of $1. Tracking the
- value of these shares of the portfolio allows us to determine the
- annually compounded rate of return, while accounting for the cash
- inflows and outflows that have occurred over time. We can
- determine the performance over the period between the most recent
- transactions or compounded over a much longer period of time.
-
- Evaluating the overall risk of the portfolio is conceptually
- difficult. There is no generally accepted indicator of overall
- portfolio risk when that portfolio includes both equities and
- bonds. Nevertheless, we do have risk measures for each of these
- components--beta for equities and duration for bonds. For a money
- market fund or account a zero beta is usually accepted. We can
- then examine performance in light of the risk measures for each
- component of the portfolio. A risk-return measure can be
- determined for the equity and money market component of the
- portfolio, which is compared to the market risk-return measure.
- The return and duration of the bond portion of the portfolio may
- be similarly compared. Both the duration and beta measures appear
- in the spreadsheet.
-
- Setting Up the Input Data
-
- In setting up the input data for your portfolio, we have designed
- the spreadsheet to accommodate any number of different securities
- and types of securities. The spreadsheet is divided into four
- major sections--money market investments, bonds (and bond mutual
- funds), stocks (and stock mutual funds), and overall performance
- evaluation.
-
- In the example worksheet there are a few different securities in
- each of the first three sections. Each separate transaction,
- whether the receipt of interest or dividend payments or the
- purchase or sale of an asset, requires a new line of data. While
- this task can be daunting, we have made it easier by using a number
- of the features that 1-2-3 (and other spreadsheets) provide.
- Essentially, we add a row in the appropriate section of the
- spreadsheet and fill in the relevant information. By setting up
- our formulas carefully, we can maintain the appropriate category
- subtotals.
-
- First, determine in what section you wish to add a security. Place
- your cursor at the row corresponding to the last entry in that
- section. As an example, we are going to add another stock. Doing
- so means placing the cursor in row 43. Use the / Worksheet Insert
- Row command to insert a row between the two stocks. Then, to keep
- the formatting that exists for the current section, use the Copy
- command to copy the data from the first company down to the
- inserted row. At this point, simply write over the existing data
- with data for the company you have added to your portfolio.
-
- If you simply insert a row and enter data, you will have to format
- each range to correspond to the way you want the data displayed.
- That can take a long time. If you want to enter more than one
- company, simply insert as many rows as you need, and copy the first
- company down all the inserted rows.
-
- You might worry about getting companies in a random order with this
- process; but it is simple to rearrange the companies in any order
- you find convenient using the Data Sort command. If you are only
- entering one or two companies, you might find it easy to simply
- insert the needed row(s) at appropriate spots in the spreadsheet.
- When adding more than one or two, using the sort features will save
- time.
-
- Suppose, for example, you have the spreadsheet with UAL entered
- between AT&T and Compaq. Sorting the companies into alphabetical
- order is straightforward. First, type / Data Sort, and 1-2-3
- prompts you to indicate the Data-Range. Highlight the entire
- equity section, A40..R43, and hit Return. Then you can choose the
- Primary-Key. This will be the first key on which the sort will
- occur--the company names, in this case. Move the cursor to cell
- B40 and strike Return. Lotus then prompts you for the order in
- which the data should be sorted--ascending or descending. In this
- case, ascending order goes from A to Z. Type A, and you will be
- back to the menu. At this point simply typing G for Go (or
- highlighting Go and hitting Return), will sort these companies into
- alphabetical order. You can use the same technique to sort on
- ticker symbol or date of transaction, if you wish.
-
- In addition, you can sort on more than one key. For example, you
- might want to have all securities in a section listed
- alphabetically, and have different transactions for the same
- security sorted by date. To do this, simply specify the Secondary-
- Key and highlight a cell with the transaction date in it.
-
- There are some things to remember when doing this. A certain
- amount of care is necessary, since 1-2-3 overrides the existing
- data in the worksheet. It would be wise to save the file first.
- In that way, anything you have done up to the point of sorting will
- be preserved if you make a mistake. Second, remember to highlight
- every piece of information in the equity section. Lotus only
- rearranges information that is highlighted. Suppose, for example,
- you do not highlight all the way over to column R but stop at
- column G. Then the information on transactions cost, total cost,
- current market value, etc., will not be sorted and will not
- correspond to the data for the correct company. Unfortunately,
- there will be nothing in the spreadsheet that will alert you to
- this problem.
-
- The Money Market Section
-
- We put all money market type investments in this section. You can
- include cash, money market mutual funds, money market deposit
- accounts, Treasury bills and certificates of deposit--any
- investment with a maturity of one year or less. Normally you would
- put longer-term fixed-income investments, such as corporate or
- municipal bonds, into the fixed-income section. This section
- requires you to enter the name of the issuer, the beta (zero), the
- investment's original and current yield, its maturity as a date,
- the original maturity in days, the current balance, the date of the
- current transaction, and the amount of the current transaction.
- Using this information, the spreadsheet determines the number of
- days remaining to maturity and the percentage invested, both for
- each item and as a weighted average for all money market
- investments. In addition, there are several columns (M through R)
- which contain calculations necessary to make the section subtotals
- work.
-
- For the Treasury bills, we must determine the appropriate value
- that we have invested. We simply take the bid yield as reported
- in the financial media and use that to determine the appropriate
- price. This is equivalent to the uncompounded yield reported for
- money market funds. These calculations appear in cells H16 and L16
- and have been discussed in the January/February 1989 issue of CI.
- Otherwise, enter the initial price directly in cell H16 and use the
- discount yield calculation in cell D16.
-
- The Bond and Bond Fund Section
-
- The fixed-income section of the portfolio is patterned after the
- bond portfolio management worksheet presented in the
- January/February issue of Computerized Investing. You must enter
- the original purchase date, the issuer, the coupon, the maturity
- date, the initial cost, number of units, any transactions costs
- (commissions and transfer fees, for example), current price and the
- date of each transaction. The spreadsheet then determines the
- current yield and yield to maturity, the duration, the total cost
- and market value, the percentage invested in each, and the market
- gain or loss on each. Several columns of data calculations (P
- through U) needed to compute the section subtotals then follow.
-
- The Stock and Stock Fund Section
-
- The equity part of the portfolio is designed to be similar to the
- fixed-income section, but different issues are important here. For
- example, riskiness is measured by beta rather than by duration.
-
- You must enter the initial purchase date, the company (or fund)
- name and ticker symbol, the beta, quarterly dividend, cost per
- share, transactions costs, number of shares, date of the current
- transaction and current market value. The program then determines
- the annual dividend and dividend yield, total market value, overall
- gain or loss and the percentage invested in each asset. Finally,
- there are several columns of data calculations.
-
- The Overall Portfolio Section
-
- This section of the spreadsheet summarizes the results of each of
- the previous sections. All of this information is calculated and
- requires no data entry. The summary information covers current
- return, risk measures, portfolio allocation, and overall gain and
- loss. It offers a quick glimpse into the current status of your
- portfolio. To evaluate longer-term performance, we must take data
- for each transaction and develop an ongoing record of performance.
- This performance record enables us to evaluate our success (and
- difficulties) over time. Our example illustrates each of these
- sections of the spreadsheet.
-
- Overall performance measures.
-
- An important aspect of portfolio management is determining return
- in order to evaluate performance. Once the information
- corresponding to each portfolio transaction is entered into the
- worksheet, that data can be carried down to create a summary report
- and performance figures. Benchmarks can then be established for
- evaluating the portfolio's short-term performance, while keeping
- in mind the importance of performance over the long run. The
- ability to generate short-run evaluations should not lead to making
- short-run decisions.
-
- In this article, we explain the concepts necessary to determine
- portfolio performance measures. In the next issue, we will take
- you step by step through the updating process. The spreadsheet
- shows how the overall performance section will look. This part of
- the spreadsheet is for illustrative purposes only. It illustrates
- how the updating process affects overall evaluation. The data here
- is composed of sample numbers. As we go through the updating
- process in our next issue, we will create spreadsheet formulas to
- generate these numbers. Most of the information will be carried
- down from previously entered data. What remains to be added are
- the figures used in making performance comparisons.
-
- An Indexed Measure of Portfolio Performance
-
- As mentioned in Part I (March/April CI), one way to track portfolio
- performance over time, with periodic cash inflows and outflows, is
- analogous to the way a mutual fund uses net asset value to
- determine the number of shares an investor receives as the result
- of a transaction. Any time you make a portfolio transaction, you
- must determine the total value of the portfolio and the proportion
- of the portfolio affected by the transaction. You accomplish this
- by establishing a portfolio share unit value. Tracking changes in
- the value of these share units allows you to determine the periodic
- rate of return and other performance measures.
-
- To set this up, we will assume that our first transaction occurs
- with a portfolio share unit value of $1.00. We could use any
- number, but it is much easier to understand the magnitude of
- changes by starting with a value of $1.00. In order to determine
- the value of transactions, we must know the market value of the
- portfolio when those transactions occur. By dividing the current
- portfolio market value by the initial value of our portfolio, we
- establish a portfolio index value.
-
- For example, if the first transaction we make in our portfolio is
- the purchase of 200 shares of Delta Air Lines at $40 per share plus
- transaction costs of $175 for a total of $8,175 on February 3,
- 1979. The beginning portfolio value would be $0.00 since this is
- our first transaction. With $1.00 fixed as our beginning
- transaction share unit value we have added 8,175 share units to the
- portfolio. We want to determine the value and the return of the
- portfolio on October 20, 1982, when we make another transaction--
- the purchase of Georgia Power. At this point, our Delta stock is
- worth $54.00 a share, for a total portfolio value of $10,800.
- Dividing that $10,800 beginning value by our beginning 8,175 share
- units gives us a beginning share unit value of $1.321.
-
- Determining the rate of return is then a matter of tracking the
- change in the share unit value. We examine the change in this
- value, the time period over which the change occurred, and
- determine the equivalent annual rate of change. Because we must
- evaluate each part of our portfolio separately, the value for every
- component must be determined for transactions of any kind.
-
- Determining the Annually Compounded Change in Portfolio Share Unit
- Values
-
- In our example, our next transaction is buying Georgia Power bonds
- on October 20, 1982. Over the period from February 3, 1979 to
- October 20, 1982, a period of three years and eight months (1,355
- days), our portfolio share unit value has increased from $1.000
- (cell E66) to $1.321 (cell E67). Using the date functions of your
- spreadsheet, this is equivalent to a rate of 7.80% per year. We
- get this annual percentage rate of return (APR) with the formula:
-
- APR = [(1 + R) ^ (365.25/# of days)] - 1
-
- where: (1 + R) = Ending Unit Value/Beginning Unit Value
-
- For our example, the beginning unit value is $1.000 and the ending
- unit value is $1.321. This gives us the effective annual realized
- rate of return of:
-
- APR = [(1.321/1.000) ^ (365.25/1355)] - 1
-
- = 1.321 ^ (0.2696) - 1
-
- = 1.078 - 1
-
- = .078 or 7.8%
-
- We will set up a column (K) for the most recent periodic change,
- as well as a column (L) that will cumulate those period changes
- over time. These changes will be compared to market changes.
-
- Obtaining Market Data for Comparative Purposes
-
- Market data for comparing and evaluating portfolio performance can
- be obtained from a variety of sources. For most investors the Wall
- Street Journal is the most readily available. The Wall Street
- Journal publishes performance information for various types of
- investments on a quarterly basis. While these reports appear every
- quarter, there is no fixed date at which to expect them; you will
- simply have to watch carefully. These data includes total returns
- for various stock market indexes and averages, bond market indexes,
- and different managed investment portfolios--some private funds,
- some mutual funds. Similar information can be found in Barron's.
- Ibbotson and Associates in Chicago offers a quarterly data service
- with detailed information on unmanaged portfolios. This service
- is expensive for an individual investor, but public libraries in
- major metropolitan areas and larger university libraries may have
- subscriptions. In addition, this information is available on-line
- and can be downloaded, for investors who need the utmost
- timeliness.
-
- The stock and bond indexes that are published daily are based on
- price changes only, and do not indicate total return. While these
- may be used for comparison with price changes in your portfolio,
- performance must be judged on a risk-adjusted, total return basis.
- It is not necessary to make these total return performance
- evaluations on a daily basis--quarterly, or even annual, updating
- is sufficient. Your purpose here is to track the long-run
- performance of your portfolio against some benchmarks. Frequent
- performance evaluations can generate a short-run trading mentality
- that can lead to poor long-run performance.
-
- You will need to find the return for Treasury bills and the return
- for a market index to perform the risk-return evaluation for the
- money market and equity portions of your portfolio. The most
- commonly used index of general market activity is the S&P 500. If
- you find an index that better represents your portfolio, feel free
- to use it.
-
- The bond portion of your portfolio should be compared with the
- return on a portfolio of bonds similar to your own bond portfolio.
- Ideally, the comparison should be made by matching duration, but
- information on duration is difficult to obtain. You can make a
- useful comparison by tracking a bond index with a maturity matching
- that of your bond portfolio. Another way of judging performance
- is to track the total return of a bond fund with approximately the
- same maturity as your bond portfolio. Morningstar publishes the
- average maturity for bond mutual funds in Mutual Fund Values, a
- financial reporting service for mutual funds that is similar to the
- Value Line Investment Survey for common stocks.
-
- Finally, to determine performance that is adjusted for inflation,
- you should also track changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
- This is reported regularly in the media.
-
- Evaluating performance should be done using long-run historical
- results, as well as current data. Table 2 gives long-run returns
- based on historical data from the beginning of 1926. This table
- gives the historical values for the equity (or market) risk
- premium, the return on the market less the Treasury bill return,
- as well as the real risk-free rate of return, which is simply the
- realized return on Treasury bills less the rate of inflation,
- measured by the CPI.
-
- Table 2
-
- Annually Compounded Returns
-
- 1926˛1988 1971˛1988
-
- Common Stocks 10.0% 11.0%
- (S&P 500)
- Treasury Bills 3.5% 7.6%
- Inflation 3.1% 6.4%
- (CPI)
- Long-Term Corporate Bonds 5.0% 8.8%
- (20-Year Maturity)
- Long-Term Government Bonds 4.4% 8.4%
- (20-Year Maturity)
- Intermediate-Term Governments 4.8% 8.8%
- (5-Year Maturity)
- Equity Risk Premium 6.2%* 3.1%*
- Real Risk-free Return 0.5%* 1.2%*
-
- * NOTE: These figures are calculated as geometric averages. For
- example, to determine the equity risk premium for the years 1926
- through 1988, 1 plus the common stock return is divided by 1 plus
- the Treasury bill return and 1 is subtracted from that result. The
- formula is:
-
- Equity Risk Premium = (1 + Stock Return)/(1 + T-Bill Return)
-
- = (1.10/1.035) - 1
-
- = 1.062 - 1
-
- = 0.062 or 6.2%
-
- Similar calculations are done to determine the real risk-free
- return.
-
- End of Table 2
-
- More detailed information can be found in "Stocks, Bonds, Bills and
- Inflation, 1989 Yearbook," published by Ibbotson Associates,
- Chicago. The longer period figures are usually the benchmarks
- against which institutional portfolio managers are judged. The
- data for the period since 1971 suggests significant changes in the
- way the economy has operated and risk has been rewarded. Higher
- rates of inflation have led to a lower risk premium and higher
- returns on fixed-income investments. If inflation stabilizes, even
- at the current 4% to 5% rate, the risk premium may well return to
- the level that prevailed over the past 63 years.
-
- Comparing Risk and Return
-
- Comparing risk and return means judging how much return you
- received for the risk taken. This is done by comparing your return
- with the return that could be generated without taking any risk.
- The return on three-month Treasury bills is an appropriate measure
- of the risk-free return. Since we will be using an annually
- compounded portfolio return, it is important to use an annually
- compounded return on Treasury bills, also. For comparison
- purposes, however, the return should be measured over the period
- you are evaluating.
-
- One way to determine this return if you are making quarterly
- performance evaluations is to use the effective annual return for
- the T-bills that mature closest to your evaluation date. A similar
- process can be used for annual comparisons. The coupon-equivalent
- yield on outstanding Treasury bills is published daily in the Wall
- Street Journal. Since this rate is compounded semiannually, you
- can easily convert it to an effective annual return. Simply take
- the yield, divide by two and compound the result for two periods.
- For example, suppose the quoted yield is 8.9%. Then the effective
- annual yield is determined by:
-
- APR = [(1 + Y/2) ^ 2] - 1
-
- where: Y is the quoted yield
-
- APR = [(1 + 0.089/2) ^ 2] - 1
-
- = [(1.0445) ^ 2] - 1
-
- = 1.09098 - 1
-
- = 0.09098 or 9.098%
-
- In addition, the Treasury bill return calculator from the
- March/April issue of CI will provide a current value of that
- return. This approach assumes that you purchased a T-bill in the
- beginning of the period and held it until its maturity. The
- effective annual return assumes that you reinvested the proceeds
- at maturity at that return. This is the same assumption applicable
- to the portfolio rate of return.
-
- The risk-adjusted return is simply the difference between the
- return on your equity investments and the risk-free return, divided
- by the beta, or riskiness, of your equity portfolio.
-
- Return/Risk = (RP - RF)/Beta
-
- where: RP is the realized return on your portfolio,
-
- RF is the return on the risk-free T-bills, and
-
- Beta is the beta of your portfolio
-
- The equity portfolio beta is the weighted average of the betas of
- the equities and stock mutual funds in your portfolio. The
- percentage each investment represents of the total portfolio is
- calculated and multiplied by the investment's beta. These figures
- are then added together to determine the portfolio beta. This can
- be found in column I, row 54 in the spreadsheet (see Figure 1).
-
- Making a similar risk-adjusted calculation for the market will
- indicate how you have done relative to the market. Suppose, for
- example, that during the most recent three months, your portfolio
- has a total annualized return of 13%, Treasury bills have a return
- of 8%, the S&P 500 index has a return of 11%, and the beta of your
- portfolio is 0.90. Then your risk-adjusted return is:
-
- Return/Risk = (RP - RF)/Beta
-
- = (0.13 - 0.08)/0.90
-
- = 5.56%
-
- Performing a similar calculation for the market gives a market
- risk-adjusted return of 3%, since the beta of the market is 1.00.
- By this standard, you earned more for the risk you took than the
- market, so you outperformed the market. If the risk-adjusted
- return for your equity portfolio were less than 3%, you would have
- underperformed the market.
-
- You could perform a similar analysis for each investment in your
- portfolio. This analysis can be used for mutual funds, since they
- are well-diversified and should only have market-related risk.
- (Beta is a market-related risk measure.) You should not, however,
- use such a performance measure for individual stocks. The betas
- for individual stocks can vary over time, and so beta is not an
- appropriate way to judge their performance. Also, only about half
- of a security's total risk is market-related and, therefore, only
- half of the risk is captured by beta.
-
- By tracking your portfolio over a period of time and making regular
- comparison of its performance with market indicators, you will be
- able to judge your investment record. The spreadsheet will track
- the numbers for you; you must judge their significance. Overall,
- performance should be commensurate with the level of portfolio
- risk.
-
- If your portfolio performance is considerably better than the
- market's on a risk-adjusted basis, consider yourself an outstanding
- investment manager. If not, evaluate whether or not frequent
- trading is generating excessive transactions costs and high taxes.
- The spreadsheet tracks transaction costs for you, but it does not
- track taxes. Decreasing the rate of portfolio turnover and
- focusing on long-term performance may improve your results. For
- most investors, increasing turnover is not the solution to poor
- performance.
-
- Updating Portfolio Values
-
- In this article we conclude our series setting up a worksheet to
- track, update and evaluate portfolio performance. The focus of
- this article is on the mechanics of portfolio updating and
- performance evaluation. The previous two articles set up the
- worksheet and discussed the issues relevant to performance
- evaluation. There are a few additions to be made to the
- spreadsheet at this point--primarily in setting up the performance
- comparisons.
-
- How Often Must You Update?
-
- Computerized investors have the advantage of access to very current
- securities prices and the ability to integrate that information
- into their personal financial databases quickly. The abundance of
- current information may tempt you to track portfolio values on a
- daily basis. This is not necessary, though you may find it useful.
-
- In order to determine appropriate portfolio performance measures,
- though, you must update all securities' values every time a
- portfolio transaction occurs. Failure to do so will result in
- errors in your rate of return calculations. These errors may be
- small, but they can accumulate over time and seriously misstate
- performance. If performance is misstated, you may make unfortunate
- decisions when revising your portfolio holdings.
-
- In addition to updating whenever a transaction occurs, most
- investors will want to make quarterly and annual performance
- evaluations. These numbers should be used to judge performance and
- make reallocation decisions. Again, do not feel that revisions
- must be made quarterly simply because you are evaluating
- performance quarterly. Excessive portfolio turnover generally
- leads to lower realized returns.
-
- Using the Portfolio Data
-
- A list of benchmark performance figures is shown in Table 1. As
- the list of sources suggests, gathering the necessary information
- requires some vigilance and a fair amount of work. There is no
- single source for all the necessary information. Probably the most
- difficult type of information to gather is that for fixed-income
- securities. There is some hope, however, as most of the major
- financial papers are recognizing the importance of fixed-income
- securities in investors' portfolio holdings. Finding the return
- is easy; it is finding the duration of these bond indexes that is
- difficult. Nevertheless, it is possible to obtain current
- performance figures on a regular basis. With a weighted-average
- coupon and a weighted-average time to maturity, you can impute a
- duration based on the current market yield-to-maturity as we have
- done with the Morningstar figures. The bond portfolio management
- article from the January/February 1989 issue of CI discusses
- duration and gives the necessary formula.
-
- Table 1
- Realized and Current Return
- Performance Benchmarks
-
-
- Realized
- Return Current
- 1st Half Yield
- Investment Type 1989 8/89
-
- 3-month T-bills 4.32% 8.27%
- Taxable Money Market Funds 5.19% 8.12%
- Non-Taxable Money Market Funds 3.50%
-
- Shearson Lehman Hutton
- Gov't./Corp. Bond Index 9.23%
- High Quality Corporate Bond Funds 7.89% 9.83%
- 10.4 years to maturity; duration 6.9
- Merrill Lynch 10-Yr. + Corps. 11.34%
- 21.5 years to maturity; duration 8.9
- Merrill Lynch 10-Yr. + Gov'ts. 13.62%
-
- S&P 500 Index 16.53% 3.24%
- Dow Jones 30 Industrials 14.95% 3.39%
-
- Growth Stock Funds 15.64%
- Small Co. Funds 15.30%
-
-
- Sources: Merrill Lynch Bond indexes appear in the Wall Street
- Journal on a regular basis. Mutual fund data from Morningstar's
- Mutual Fund Values. Figures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones appear
- in Barron's with the mutual fund data. Current yields appear each
- week in the Market Laboratory section.
-
- End of Table 1
-
- In addition to the performance data in Table 1, we have also given
- some current return data for some of the investments used as
- benchmarks. This current return data allows you to evaluate the
- income status of your portfolio. This information will be useful
- when considering changes in portfolio composition. You must
- determine your own portfolio objectives to determine the importance
- of current return in total return comparisons. Comparison of the
- current return figures with the historical averages and the figures
- of the past quarter and year will provide an indication of whether
- performance is reasonable or not.
-
- Computing Performance Figures
-
- We showed in the May/June issue how to compute a portfolio share
- unit value to determine the overall portfolio total rate of return.
-
- To make similar total return calculations for each part of the
- portfolio, we must add a few columns of formulas to the right of
- the section on Overall Portfolio Performance Measures. Starting
- in cell J52, enter the beginning portfolio value, date of update
- (K52), beginning number of units (L52), the beginning unit value
- (M52), change in portfolio market value (N52), cash withdrawals or
- additions (O52), change in units (P52), ending number of share
- units (Q52), and total portfolio value (R52).
-
- The final step is to set up the overall risk-adjusted performance
- measures immediately below the total portfolio return calculations.
-
- Insert 20 rows starting at row 59, using the / Worksheet Row Insert
- command. The first four columns are the same as those above them-
- -the current date, portfolio component, and name and value of risk
- measure. Next is the realized return over the quarter (column E).
- Then in column F, enter the name of the benchmark portfolio. In
- column G, enter the return from that comparison portfolio. In
- column H, we calculate the risk-adjusted performance for the equity
- section of the portfolio. For the fixed-income securities,
- reference the duration of the corresponding index in column H. In
- column I, calculate the risk-adjusted performance for the benchmark
- portfolios. In column J, enter the current yield of the market
- benchmarks, and in column K do the same for each portfolio
- component (from column E, rows 52 through 54). Copying down the
- dollars and percentage invested from cells F52 through G56 to cell
- L64 will allow you to determine overall portfolio total realized
- return and current yields, which can be compared with the current
- market indexes. Finally, enter the appropriate summary market
- benchmark data in cells A75 through H78. This completes the
- performance evaluation section.
-
- The Updating Process
-
- To make this template work, simply enter the market values of each
- security whenever a transaction occurs, such as a portfolio change,
- the receipt of a dividend or interest payment, or cash withdrawal
- or addition. Remember that a dividend whose income is spent
- represents a withdrawal from the portfolio since it is not
- reinvested. At the same time, enter the appropriate market
- performance figures.
-
- Once the current market values are entered, the portfolio
- performance figures and market benchmarks are calculated. Then you
- can evaluate the realized performance and plan for the future.
-
- At this point, you will find it useful to save the appropriate
- quarterly performance figures. Use the File Extract command to do
- so; the sequence is / File Extract. Then specify the range from
- A47 to O68. Finally, 1-2-3 requests a file name, 2ndqtr89, for
- example. Do not enter an extension (.wks), as 1-2-3 automatically
- does so. Each year you can combine the quarterly files to obtain
- an annual performance evaluation. Tracking this data for your
- portfolio should enable you to make better portfolio decisions.
-
- (c) Copyright 1989 by the
- American Association of Individual Investors