Returns Calculator
Three ways to measure what your money actually did — or could do. Lumpsum projection, CAGR between two points, or XIRR across any set of cashflows.
Inputs
Projection
How this works
Lumpsum Projection uses the standard compound interest formula: FV = P × (1 + r/100)n. P is your principal, r the annual return rate, n the years. The gain is FV minus P. The chart plots each year's value so you can see compounding accelerate over time.
CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) answers: "at what steady annual rate would I have had to grow to get from A to B?" The formula is CAGR = (Final/Initial)1/years − 1. It smooths out the path — two identical CAGRs can have very different journeys in between. Decimals are allowed for the period, so you can compute a 3.5-year CAGR precisely. If the final value is below the initial, CAGR is negative and shown in red.
XIRR (Extended Internal Rate of Return) is the industry-standard way to measure returns when you invest or redeem at irregular dates — just like most real portfolios. It finds the annualised discount rate r that sets the present value of all cashflows to zero:
Σ CFk / (1 + r)((dk − d0) / 365) = 0
The solver uses Newton–Raphson with an analytic first derivative for fast convergence, falling back to bisection on [−99.9999%, very large upper bound] if Newton–Raphson diverges or the initial derivative is too flat. Convergence tolerance is 1×10−7 across up to 200 iterations. Cashflows are sorted by date internally — order of entry doesn't matter.
Convention (same as Excel): investments / outflows are negative; redemptions / current value are positive. At least one of each is required.
CAGR vs XIRR: Use CAGR when you have a single start and end value and want a clean annualised number. Use XIRR when you've invested at multiple times (SIPs, follow-on top-ups) or made partial withdrawals — CAGR will give you a misleading result in those cases, XIRR will not.