Hi, I’m new to Sharesight. Loading in some old investments - stocks with dividends, and funds with distributions. I’ve generally taken the payouts as cash, but re-invested (DRP) some stocks. Sharesight has gathered the correct dividend/distribution info nicely. But I’m wondering about the best way to show the total return on the cash-payout ones. I can just pretend I DRP’ed them, that could be close enough (except current value would be wrong). I may be missing something obvious. Any thoughts very welcome.
Hi @grege do you mean dividend return excluding those that got reinvested? There isn’t an easy way to separate and calculate that return though.
Hi, thanks for responding. I’ve done more reading now, into Sharesight’s handling of Dividends/Distributions, and DRP facilities. Am I correct that, without activating the DRP facility, all Dividends/Distributions are handled as cash payouts ? So no compounding effect happens ? Thanks.
Hi @grege welcome to Sharesight! Yes you’re right. There won’t be any compounding if you don’t setup the auto DRP (excluding all the market buys). Generally you’ll see a higher return with reinvestment (if you benchmark against the same holding) than without, when the price gradually goes up over time.
Thanks. I’m enjoying switching to Sharesight, I haven’t used a comprehensive Investments Tracker before, it adds a layer of insight and indeed fun into the exercise. I might put a dummy investment of VAS.AX and VHY.AX into the Portfolio to see what I’m achieving, if anything. Thanks for responding.