Returns analysis
Why money-weighted returns can look strange, when XIRR is doing the right job, and how missing current values distort the result.
A simple gain percentage treats the account like one pot. XIRR treats each deposit and withdrawal as a dated cash flow. Add a large amount near a peak and the result can look much worse than the chart in your head.
That does not mean the calculation is broken. It means it is answering a narrower question: what annualised return did your actual invested cash earn, given the timing?
XIRR needs two things: dated cash flows and a current value. If the import has deposits and withdrawals but no holdings snapshot, the app cannot pretend the account is worth zero just to produce a number.
That is why DiviScout asks for a current account value, or uses imported holdings when they are available. Without that last value, the return is not merely rough; it is the wrong calculation.
When XIRR spits out a huge number, the first suspect should be the import, not a sudden discovery that you are an investing genius. The common causes are incomplete history, a missing current value, or a current value that does not belong to the same cash flows.
Precision can be misleading here. The right move is to check the file coverage and ending value before reading anything into the result.
Simple gain tells you what happened to the pot relative to deposits. XIRR tells you how the timing of those deposits changed the annualised return.
Neither number is enough on its own. Together they tell you whether the portfolio result is genuinely good, or whether cash-flow timing is doing most of the explaining.
Use in DiviScout
Use both views together to separate real portfolio performance from cash-flow timing and missing-value problems.
XIRR is money-weighted, so it reacts strongly to the timing of deposits, withdrawals and the ending portfolio value. That makes it answer a different question from a simple gain percentage.
The most common issues are incomplete cash-flow history, a missing or inconsistent current portfolio value, or an import range that excludes earlier deposits and buys.
Not without checking the assumptions. Extreme percentages usually point to broken inputs or incomplete coverage rather than genuinely extraordinary performance.
Open the main Trading 212 tools page if you want to compare XIRR with simple gain, or start with the export guide if you still need the right broker file.