Period performance

The Period Performance Report provides a detailed analysis of a portfolio’s or tenant’s performance over a defined time period. The report allows tracking value development on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis and identifying the various factors influencing overall performance.

Accessing the Report

The Period Performance Report can be accessed at two levels:

1. Tenant Level: Via Main Menu → Accounts & Portfolios → Portfolios → Period Performance

   • Analyzes the combined performance of all tenant portfolios
   • Values are displayed in the tenant currency

2. Portfolio Level: Within a single portfolio → Period Performance

   • Analyzes only the selected portfolio
   • Values are displayed in the portfolio currency

Input Parameters

Before calculating the report, the following parameters must be specified:

Date From

The start date of the analysis period (inclusive). Important: The date refers to the close of trading, meaning the income of the start day is not included in the calculation. The start day therefore serves as the baseline against which the change up to the end date is measured.

The date must be a valid trading day, so neither a weekend nor a holiday nor a day with missing quotes. It also cannot be before the oldest possible date, which is shown above the input form after the remark “Oldest possible date:”.

This oldest possible date is the last trading day before the first securities purchase. That choice is deliberate: nothing is invested yet on that day, so an analysis starting from it begins at zero for gain, securities, balance buy/sell securities, dividends, fees and account interest. If the day of the first purchase were used as the start date instead, that purchase would already be contained in the starting values and its result would be lost to the analysis, because the income of the start day is not counted.

The oldest possible date is always a real trading day. If the calendar day before the first securities purchase falls on a weekend or a holiday, the preceding trading day is offered instead, for example the Friday before a purchase on Monday.

Date To

The end date of the analysis period (inclusive). The date refers to the close of trading.

Restrictions:

• Must be a valid trading day
• Must be after the start date
• Cannot be after the last available trading day

Period Splitting

Determines how data is aggregated in the report:

• Week: Displays performance by weekdays (Monday-Friday)

  • Only available if the period spans at most the configured number of weeks
  • Ideal for detailed short-term analysis

• Year/Month: Displays performance by months

  • Only available if the period spans at least the configured number of months
  • Ideal for longer-term overviews

The availability of options is dynamically adjusted based on the selected time period.

Report Content

The Period Performance Report consists of several main sections:

1. Summary (Period Comparison)

This section displays three columns:

• First Day: All values at the period start date
• Last Day: All values at the period end date
• Difference: The change between start and end

Displayed Metrics:

The first five rows are cumulative values. They accumulate from the very first transaction onwards and not only from the chosen start date, which is why the Difference column alone says anything about the chosen period. Since the start day serves as the comparison base, a booking dated on the start day is not part of that difference.

The date of each column appears in its title line and is not a row of the table.

Important: All values are displayed in the main currency - either tenant or portfolio currency, depending on the access context. The main currency is appended to the label of each row.

Below the summary follow the relative figures of the period, described in the section Return and risk.

2. Detailed Period Windows (Table View)

This section shows daily changes structured by periods (weeks or months):

With a weekly split each row represents one week and the columns show the days Monday through Friday. With a monthly split each row represents one year and the columns show the twelve months. In both cases the Total column with the sum of the period follows at the end, and the Grand total footer summarizes each column across all periods.

All amounts of this table include the gain of the open margin positions, the Total column and the footer as well. The cells of a row therefore add up to the value of the Total column, and the grand total of that column equals the Total Gain in the Difference column of the summary.

To the right of Total is the column Time-weighted return %. It shows the return of the whole week or year and is visible even when the period is collapsed, so the periods can be compared with each other directly. The return and the gain of a period may have different signs: when a lot of money flowed in during a price decline, the return is negative while the gain is positive because of the deposit. Each figure is coloured red or green by its own sign. The footer of that column shows the time-weighted return of the whole period. It is the chaining of the period returns, not their sum. If a period has not a single valued day, for example because it consists of holidays only, its cell stays empty.

Every period can be expanded and then shows up to five rows, whose label appears in the first column:

A tooltip on a cell additionally shows its complete value.

Color Coding in the Table:

• 🟩 Green: Regular trading day with data
• 🟨 Yellow: Holiday (no trading activity)
• 🟥 Red: Trading day with missing historical quote data
• ⬜ Gray: Weekend or non-relevant day

3. Column Sums

At the end of each column (weekday or month), the sum of gains for all corresponding days/months is displayed. This allows pattern recognition (e.g., “Is Monday a bad day for my portfolio?”).

4. Chart view

After a calculation, Show Chart in the View menu opens a line chart in the Additional Area; before the first calculation the menu item cannot be selected. For every day of the calculated period, the chart shows five lines in the main currency. Securities + Balance is the total assets on the respective day. The other four lines show the change since the first day of the period and therefore start at zero: External cash inflows, outflows the amounts paid in or out since then, Gain the gain or loss achieved since then, Cash balance the change in cash holdings and Securities the change in the securities holdings. This makes it possible to tell whether an increase in assets stems from deposits or from gains. Below the chart there is a reduced image of the whole time axis. By dragging its two edges you narrow down the displayed period without repeating the calculation. The legend is below the chart; clicking an entry hides or shows the line. Hovering with the mouse shows the value of the nearest day. If the report is recalculated with a different period, an open chart takes over the new values.

5. PDF report

The menu item PDF report… outputs the calculated evaluation as a PDF document, for example to hand it to a client. Period and period splitting are taken from the displayed calculation. Which sections the document contains and how it is structured is described in the chapter PDF report.

Return and risk

The amounts of the summary depend on the size of the invested capital. A gain of 1,000 is a lot for a portfolio of 10,000 and little for one of 1,000,000, and as soon as money has been deposited or withdrawn, the gain divided by the starting value no longer says anything about the return either. Between the summary and the table the report therefore shows relative figures that allow periods and portfolios of different size to be compared. They are calculated on every request from the daily values of the report, the dated deposits and withdrawals, and the fee bookings of the period.

Percentages are shown in percent, so 12.34 means 12.34 %. An empty field means that the figure cannot be determined for this period; the group Data basis gives the reason. The figures are arranged in four groups.

Return

Risk

For the best and worst day or month only complete steps are taken into account. A day preceded by a trading day without complete prices actually spans several days, and a month whose last valuation is missing or whose previous month ends incomplete is not a whole month. Such steps do appear in the table but are not part of this ranking. The first and the last month of a period only count when the period begins or ends exactly at a month end.

Costs

The account and custody fees of this group are not the same as the difference of the row Account/Depot real cost of the summary. That row converts all fees ever booked on a foreign-currency account at the rate of the respective day and therefore changes with an exchange rate movement even when no fee was booked. Here only the fees booked within the chosen period count.

Data basis

Time-weighted or money-weighted return?

Without deposits and withdrawals both returns are equal. They only differ when money flows during the period. An example over one year: a portfolio starts with 10,000 and gains 10 % in the first half year to 11,000. Now another 10,000 are deposited, the holding amounts to 21,000. In the second half year the investments lose 10 %, at the end 18,900 remain.

• The time-weighted return chains the two half years: 1.10 × 0.90 − 1 = −1 %. It describes how good the investments themselves were and does not depend on the deposit coming at an unfavourable moment.
• The money-weighted return is about −7.3 %. It takes into account that twice as much money was invested in the bad second half year as in the good first one, and so describes how your money actually fared.
• The gain divided by the starting value, on the other hand, gives (18,900 − 20,000) / 10,000 = −11 %. This number is no return, because the deposit of 10,000 is not contained in the starting value.

To compare two periods or two portfolios, use the time-weighted return. The money-weighted return shows the effect of the decisions when money was invested or withdrawn.

Limitations of the figures

• Deposits count as flowed at the start of the day, withdrawals at the end of the day. If a deposit and a price gain fall on the same day, the gain is spread over the larger capital.
• Days without complete prices are no valuation. The time-weighted return across such a gap treats all deposits of the gap as flowed at its start and all withdrawals as flowed at its end, and a low on such a day is missing from the drawdown. The money-weighted return, by contrast, uses the actual booking days. The volatility leaves out returns across a gap; the group Data basis shows how many there are.
• An instrument whose prices are recorded as constant per period counts as fully valued. Volatility and drawdown therefore come out lower than they actually were.
• All figures are calculated in the main currency and therefore include currency gains and losses. Dividends, interest and booked fees are contained in the value, taxes as far as they were booked. The returns are therefore neither “gross” nor “after all costs”.
• The daily values are rounded to two decimals. With a very small holding this rounding can visibly move the percentages.
• The account and custody fee ratio only covers separately booked account and custody fees, no transaction, financing or fund-internal costs. It is therefore not the loss of return caused by all costs. The p.a. ratio is scaled linearly, so an annual custody fee can be contained twice in a period of 13 months.
• With alternating deposits and withdrawals the money-weighted return can be ambiguous. The report then shows no value and names the reason.
• A value of zero or below, which can arise with margin positions or short sales, counts as total loss. Later periods show their own return again in the table, but the whole period stays at −100 %.
• The p.a. values are calculated on 365 days. A leap year has 366 days from date to date, the p.a. value is then slightly below the return of the period.
• All drawdown figures refer to the chosen period. A high before the start date is not taken into account.

Comparison with the Portfolios evaluation

Some figures appear both in Period performance and in the Portfolios and Portfolio evaluation. That the amounts can differ is by design and does not mean that one of the two evaluations is calculating incorrectly. This section explains where the differences come from, how large they may be, and when the values must agree exactly.

Two different constructions

The Portfolios evaluation is a snapshot on a cut-off date. It recalculates the entire history on every call, from the very first transaction up to the cut-off date, and keeps nothing in between.

Period performance is a series over trading days. It reads continuously maintained daily balances, written along with every booking, and from them shows the development and the difference between two days.

So the two reports do not recompute the same route twice. They are two different constructions that happen to share a few figures.

Which values correspond

The exchange rate: the main reason for a deviation

The Portfolios evaluation converts every single booking with the exchange rate of its own booking day. Period performance keeps the accumulated amount in the currency of the account and converts it once, with the exchange rate of the evaluation day.

graph LR
    T[Booking in a foreign currency] --> A[Rate of the booking day]
    A --> P[Portfolios: Account and custody account costs, Account interest]
    T --> S[Running balance in account currency]
    S --> B[Rate of the evaluation day]
    B --> R[Period performance: Account/Depot real cost, Account interest real]

An example makes it tangible. EUR 218.01 of interest was credited to a euro account at the end of 2008. At a rate of 1.4655 that was CHF 319.49 at the time, and the credit appears with that amount in the Portfolios evaluation. Period performance converts the same EUR 218.01 with the rate of the evaluation day, and at a rate of 0.9386 that is CHF 204.62.

Neither value is wrong. One says what the interest was worth at the moment it was credited, the other what the same amount is worth on the evaluation day. The effect grows with the age of the bookings and with the movement of the currency: for an account that has been held for years in a currency that has clearly gained or lost against the main currency, the two amounts can be several percent apart.

If that is not wanted, the Portfolios evaluation can be switched to the route of period performance. With the client setting Convert costs and interest at the cut-off date it converts these two figures with the rate of the cut-off date as well, see Client; the four rows of this table then agree apart from rounding. The price is that the rate movement of those bookings is no longer shown separately as Forex gain in the Portfolios evaluation.

Rounding

The two evaluations round at different points of the calculation. A deviation of a few cents is therefore to be expected even where everything else matches, and says nothing about the quality of the data.

Missing prices affect the two differently

Period performance leaves out an entire day as soon as the price of a held security or a required exchange rate is missing on that day. The Portfolios evaluation has no such concept. Instead it leaves out the cash account it cannot convert and reports the affected currencies separately.

A deviation can therefore also mean that the two reports are not working on the same set of data. If prices have gaps, it is worth filling them first and comparing the evaluations again afterwards.

When the values agree exactly

For an account held in the main currency no conversion is needed and both evaluations deliver the same amount. The same applies to the figures that are converted on the same basis on both sides: External cash inflows, outflows and Cash balance, and to all four figures as soon as the client setting Convert costs and interest at the cut-off date is set. What remains in every case is the rounding difference of a few cents.

Financing costs of margin positions

These arise continuously on margin products such as Forex and CFDs and are charged to the cash account. Nevertheless they appear in neither of the two cost columns: not in Account/Depot real cost and not in Account and custody account costs. They are a cost of the position and not of the bank account, and are therefore reported through the securities result.

In period performance they have no row of their own. They lower the Cash balance and thus the Gain, but are not shown separately anywhere.

Missing End-of-Day Quotes

An important aspect of the Period Performance Report is the handling of missing quote data. Missing quote data occurs when no historical quotes are available for held securities on a trading day. This can have various causes: The quote provider did not deliver data, technical problems occurred during data retrieval, or the security was actually not traded on that day.

The impact on the report is significant. Missing days are marked red in the period calendar, and performance cannot be calculated on these days. A missing exchange rate is treated in exactly the same way: if a security or an account balance cannot be converted into the main currency on a day because the currency pair has no price, that day drops out of the report as well. This is intended, because otherwise a foreign currency amount would enter the evaluation unconverted and pretend a gain or a loss that never existed. On how such gaps arise see Prices for every calendar day. The system counts consecutive missing days and displays them in the “Missing Days” field. During date selection, days with missing quotes are automatically marked as invalid trading days, so they cannot be selected as start or end dates.

Overview and Interaction with Missing Quotes

The report provides a separate view for analyzing and resolving missing quote data. This can be accessed via the menu under “Missing End-of-Day Quotes” and displays two interconnected areas: A year calendar in the upper area and a securities table in the lower area.

The year calendar displays all trading days of the selected year in a clear overview. The color coding immediately reveals where problems exist: Green-marked days indicate that all quotes are available. Red-marked days show that at least one security has missing quotes. Yellow-marked days are days with missing quotes that have been selected by the user. When you click on a red-marked day, the securities table reacts immediately and displays only the securities that have missing quotes on that specific day.

The securities table lists all securities that have missing quotes in the selected period. In addition to the security name, the number of missing days is also displayed. The interaction also works bidirectionally here: When you click on a security in the table, all days on which this specific security has missing quotes are automatically marked yellow in the calendar. This bidirectional interaction enables quick identification of systematic data gaps and targeted remediation.

The same table also lists the currency pairs whose exchange rate is missing on individual days. They appear there under their name such as «USD/CHF», while the ISIN and «Active from» and «Active to or maturity date» stay empty for them, because a currency pair does not have these properties. Their days are marked red in the calendar just like those of the securities, and the selection works in both directions as it does for a security.

If a required currency pair has no price at all instead of missing it on individual days, not a single usable day is left for the period performance. The report then stops with a message naming the affected currency pairs, so that you do not look for the cause among your securities. How a currency pair ends up without any price history is described under When a currency pair remains without prices.

Resolving Missing Quote Data Issues

Several options are available for resolving missing historical quote data. The simplest method is manually reloading the quote data. Historical quotes can be retrieved again from the data provider via securities management. Select the affected security and trigger an update of the historical data.

A particularly elegant solution for individual missing days between available quotes is linear filling of missing quote data. The system can fill quote gaps through linear interpolation, whereby the missing quote is calculated from the adjacent available quotes. This method is particularly suitable for individual missing days in otherwise complete quote series, for example when the data provider had an outage on a single day.

If a data provider systematically has gaps, it may make sense to switch to an alternative data provider. GT supports various data providers, and often another provider offers better coverage for certain markets or securities. The data provider can be changed in the settings of the respective security.

For a few missing days, especially for exotic securities with poor data coverage, manual quote entry is also possible. While this option is time-consuming, it may be the only way to achieve a complete quote history in individual cases.

Technical Details

Trading Days and Holidays

The system automatically considers:

• Global Holidays: Worldwide non-trading days
• Exchange-Specific Holidays: Holidays of exchanges where held securities are traded
• Weekends: Saturday and Sunday are always excluded

Currency Conversion

All securities and accounts are automatically converted into the main currency, into the tenant currency for a tenant evaluation and into the portfolio currency for a portfolio evaluation.

The decisive rate is the exchange rate of the day being evaluated. This also applies to the cumulative rows Interest/Dividends real, Account/Depot real cost, Account interest real, Balance buy/sell Securities and Cash balance: the amount accumulated over the years is kept in the currency of the account and converted only at the end, with the rate of the evaluation day. External cash inflows, outflows is the exception, where every deposit and withdrawal is converted with the rate of its own booking day.

For an account held in the main currency this makes no difference. For a foreign-currency account it means that these rows can deviate from the corresponding columns of the Portfolios evaluation, see Comparison with the Portfolios evaluation.

Performance Optimization

• The system uses a cache with 2-minute validity for trading day metadata
• Results are reused for repeated requests within the cache period

Typical Use Cases

1. Performance Analysis: How has my portfolio developed over the last quarter?
2. Impact Analysis: Which factors (gains, deposits, price development) influenced performance?
3. Pattern Recognition: Are there specific weekdays or months with particularly good/bad performance?
4. Data Quality: Are there systematic gaps in my historical quote data?
5. Comparison: How does the performance of different portfolios differ?

Limitations and Notes

• The report requires at least one securities holding. If only accounts have been kept so far and no security was ever held, the input form stays disabled.
• For meaningful analysis, the period should span at least several trading days
• Missing quote data can affect calculation accuracy
• Period splitting selection is automatically restricted based on the time period
• For very large periods (multiple years), calculation may take several seconds