Money-weighted return (MWR)

Money-weighted return treats your portfolio like a small business: money went in on certain dates, money came out on others, and a value remains today. It is the single annual rate which, applied to each cash flow for exactly as long as that money was invested, reproduces the amount you now hold. Accountants know the same quantity as the internal rate of return.

Why it matters

Because every euro is weighted by how long it was actually at work, a large late deposit dominates the figure. If most of your money arrived in the past two years, this number mostly describes those two years, however the earlier ones went. That is not a defect. It is the number your account balance was built from, and the distance between it and the time-weighted figure is roughly what your timing added or cost.

How BullBenchmark shows it

We compute both figures from the same transaction files, so the pair can be read together rather than one at a time. The deposits and withdrawals that drive the money-weighted side are also the ones replayed into the index, which keeps the comparison consistent across all three lines. The demo portfolio shows the result on a history with irregular deposits across two brokers.

Related terms

Time-weighted return (TWR) · XIRR · Cash-flow replay

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