Lifetime ROI Explained: How Has All Your Invested Capital Performed?
The One-Sentence Definition
Lifetime ROI is the return on all capital you've ever deployed, including closed positions, divided by the total amount you originally invested in everything you've ever bought.
Lifetime ROI is calculated automatically in Turbobulls from your full transaction history. See it on your dashboard →
The Intuition: Your Full Trading Record
Person A: Only ever held, never sold
Invested 40,000 over time, never sold anything. Position worth 50,000 today. Lifetime ROI = 25%, same as ROI (open).Person B: Sold winners along the way
Bought 30,000 of stocks, sold them for 35,000 (5k realized gain). Then bought 10,000 more, now worth 13,000. Lifetime ROI counts both: total gain / total deployed.Lifetime ROI is a "career batting average" for your investments. It rewards or punishes every decision you've ever made - including the sells.
What the Portfolio Badge Means
Inside Turbobulls, every metric carries a small scope badge that tells you what data feeds it. Lifetime ROI carries the Portfolio badge.
That means it looks at your entire investing history:
- Open lots at every broker (still held)
- Closed lots (already sold)
- All realized capital gains
- All realized currency gains
- All income (dividends, interest)
- Minus all taxes and fees ever paid
It deliberately ignores wallet cash, debt, and anything outside your tracked investing activity.
How to Read the Number
| Lifetime ROI | What it typically means |
|---|---|
| Negative | Net losses across your entire history. The market or your strategy hasn't worked out so far. |
| 0% - 10% | Modest. Below stock market average; possibly being eaten by fees, taxes, or bad timing. |
| 10% - 30% | Decent. In line with or slightly above what passive investing would produce. |
| 30% - 100% | Strong. Multiple years of compounding adding up, or some big winners. |
| > 100% | Excellent. Either a long history of strong returns or a few exceptional trades. |
See the Verdict on Every Dollar You've Invested
Lifetime ROI vs ROI (Open): The Key Difference
This is the most important comparison to understand. Turbobulls shows two ROI numbers and they answer different questions:
How Turbobulls Calculates Lifetime ROI
In plain words: Turbobulls adds up every dollar you've ever invested, every dollar you've gained or lost (realized and unrealized), and divides the second by the first.
Lifetime ROI = totalGain / principalAll × 100
totalGain. Realized capital gain + realized currency gain + unrealized capital gain + unrealized currency gain + income - taxes - fees. Everything that affected your wealth from investing.
principalAll. Sum across every lot ever opened (closed or open) of: original quantity × buy price × FX rate at buy. The total capital you ever deployed.
Divide. totalGain divided by principalAll, times 100.
When Lifetime ROI Matters - and When to Ignore It
- Evaluating your full track record. The complete verdict on every trade you've made.
- You sell positions regularly. ROI (open) misses your closed-trade history; Lifetime ROI captures it.
- Comparing strategies over time. Filter by tag or asset type to see lifetime returns per segment.
- Net-of-cost performance. Fees and taxes are subtracted in the numerator.
- You only care about current holdings. ROI (open) is the cleaner answer there.
- You want timing-aware returns. Use MWR - Lifetime ROI ignores when capital was deployed.
- You want risk-adjusted return. Use Sharpe ratio - Lifetime ROI ignores volatility.
- You just started investing. Without closed positions, Lifetime ROI equals ROI (open).
The Full Picture: Pair Lifetime ROI With These
Lifetime ROI is the broadest single percentage return measure. Pair it with these for the full performance picture:
See Your Full Investing Track Record in One Number
Turbobulls computes Lifetime ROI automatically from every transaction you've ever logged. No need to manually track closed positions - it's all included.
- Automatic Lifetime ROI across your entire transaction history
- Net of fees, taxes, and currency conversion costs
- Per-broker, per-asset-type, per-currency segment breakdowns
- Pairs with ROI (open), MWR, and Sharpe for full performance analysis
- Multi-currency portfolios handled natively
- Zero manual calculations - log a transaction, see updated metrics
Read more
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Currency Gain Explained: How Much of Your Return Came From FX, Not the Asset?
Currency gain isolates the FX-driven portion of your investment returns. Learn how Turbobulls separates it from capital gain, why it matters for multi-currency investors, and what to do with the insight.
Open Win Rate Explained: How Many of Your Bets Are Currently Winning?
Open Win Rate is the share of your currently-open positions that are profitable. Learn how Turbobulls calculates it, what good values look like, and why a high win rate doesn't always mean good returns.