The Real Return Handbook
Why the number your broker shows you is wrong, and how to find the one that is true.
A guide to measurementEdition 2026-07
Open any brokerage app and it tells you how you are doing. One number, usually green. That number is not lying - it is answering a narrower question than the one you asked, and the gap between the two can be the difference between a good decade and a bad one.
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Contents
- 01The question you think you are asking
- 02Timing: the same asset, two very different outcomes
- 03Currency: the European blind spot
- 04Dividends: the return you already received and stopped counting
- 05Costs: the drag you were never shown
- 06Drawdown: the number that predicts whether you will hold
- 07What to measure
- 08A note on what this is not
Arithmetic you can check
Every example is worked in full and simple enough to do on paper. The asset that rose 20 percent while you lost 34. The US stock that gained a fifth and left you exactly where you started. Nothing here asks you to trust a tool, including ours.