Total Return Comparison: Mutual Fund vs a Stock

[Copernicus]

I have some individual stocks bought in the pre-Bogleheads days. I need to compare the total return on each against S&P 500 total return.
In Morningstar, If I start with a growth chart of VFINX and compare a stock with it, does the chart include reinvested dividends of the stock in it's growth numbers?

[munemaker]

Go to morningstar.com and enter the symbol for your stock. It will give you the total return (includes reinvested dividends) for various time periods. You can look up the symbol for the S&P 500 index fund and observe total returns for the same periods, and make the comparison you desire.

Morningstar publishes returns for the past 15 years. If you want to go back further than that, this approach will not help you.

[Copernicus]

Go to morningstar.com and enter the symbol for your stock. It will give you the total return (includes reinvested dividends) for various time periods. You can look up the symbol for the S&P 500 index fund and observe total returns for the same periods, and make the comparison you desire.

Morningstar publishes returns for the past 15 years. If you want to go back further than that, this approach will not help you.

Morningstar gives returns for fixed periods. My purchase dates fall somewhere between (for example 12 yrs 7 months back). Those return numbers 10 and 15 years do not help in a fair comparison. The growth charts would help with custom dates IF both the growth numbers will include dividends reinvested for both VFINS and comparison stock.

[jimb_fromATL]

Go to morningstar.com and enter the symbol for your stock. It will give you the total return (includes reinvested dividends) for various time periods. You can look up the symbol for the S&P 500 index fund and observe total returns for the same periods, and make the comparison you desire.

Morningstar publishes returns for the past 15 years. If you want to go back further than that, this approach will not help you.

Morningstar gives returns for fixed periods. My purchase dates fall somewhere between (for example 12 yrs 7 months back). Those return numbers 10 and 15 years do not help in a fair comparison. The growth charts would help with custom dates IF both the growth numbers will include dividends reinvested for both VFINS and comparison stock.

Portfolio VIsualizer has data on lots of individual stocks as well as mutual funds. It is one of the few on-line historical data and calculator sites I know of that also allows you to do what-if calculations and comparisons with periodic contributions or withdrawals for annual quarterly or monthly data -- like a typical retirement account -- and with specific starting and ending dates instead of just a lump sum starting at the beginning of a given year. Most of the funds and stocks I've seen there go back no further than around 1985-1987. Some indexes and generic fund allocation/sector data goes back further.

HERE is a sample comparing two stocks and the S&P 500 with monthly contributions.

In addition to lump sum and periodic contributions or withdrawals, Portfolio Visualizer also provides choices for many allocation options, automatic rebalancing, and adjusting for inflation. Plus, it allow you to compare your funds and allocations to a lot of the popular allocations including the bogleheads 3-fund strategy, AND it does Monte Carlo simulations.

The downloadable reports (to your spreadsheet) that you can do with a free registration include summaries of annual or other period growth, rolling averages, lots of the popular technical indicators of volatility, and summaries of the worst down periods and how long the funds took to recover.

I've written a lot of spreadsheets over the years for my own use to do a lot of the kinds of things it does. But I've never really come anywhere close to all the things that PortFolioVisualizer does for you, with a user friendly interface, far more details, gathering the historical data from multiple sources, and dong it all almost effortlessly.

jimb

[Copernicus]

In Morningstar, If I start with a growth chart of VFINX and compare a stock with it, does the chart include reinvested dividends of the stock in it's growth numbers? Does anyone know?