Math, Returns, Tracking and Such

[Cortopassi]

I am an EE grad from U of Illinois, and I have taken more math classes than the average human and deal with some levels of math every day at work.

However, I have my PP spread across 4 accounts, plus physical, and I have been trying to maintain a spreadsheet with rebalancing, figuring in the addition of physical gold, additional IRA/401k contributions, etc. and I am quite tired of trying to estimate my ongoing return and just the time spent trying to track drives me nuts.  Not enjoyable for the most part.

A question to everyone -- what tools (or not) do you use to try to keep track of how you are doing?  Peak to Trough is nice as a benchmark, but since my portfolio is forced to hold slightly different funds, it's only a ballpark.

I am very close to just ballparking the percentages I want to be at and give up trying to figure the real return.  One of the highlights of the PP was to make investing easier, and this part is too time consuming.

[rickb]

I use a spreadsheet and compute return over various periods (1-3-6-12 months) using a simple formula

(EndValue - 1/2*TotalAdditions)/(StartValue + 1/2*TotalAdditions) - 1

This is not quite the same as the Simple Dietz method, and doesn't give you an annual CAGR for multi-year periods - but it's at least a fairly close approximation over periods of a year or less.

If you want CAGR over multi-year periods you could start with some amount (say $10,000) and adjust it yearly by the simple return number computed as above, and then compute a compound rate based on the start value, end value, and number of years.  Again - this won't be exactly correct, but it will be fairly close.

[Cortopassi]

Thanks, rickb.

Now that I have a simpler setup on my spreadsheet it will be easier for me to implement something like this.