How ChartRow measures a trailing return

“Up 12% over the past month” depends on which close the month starts from, and two sites can disagree by a point on the same stock for that reason alone. ChartRow uses one definition everywhere — the tables, the charts, the screener and the heatmaps — and it is the one Yahoo Finance uses, so you can check us against it.

Where a window starts

• 5D starts at the close five trading sessions before the last one.
• 1M, 3M, 1Y and 5Y start at the close on or before the same calendar date that many months back. A month-end clamps: one month before March 31 is February 28 (or 29).
• YTD starts at the last close of the previous year.

During the trading day a window ends at the live price, but it still starts from that same close. We never add today’s move on top of a figure computed last night, which would leave the start a day behind. If the start is missing (a stock listed in the last three months has no 3M figure), the cell shows a dash, never a shorter window under the longer label.

Price return and total return

A price return is the change in the share price. A total return also counts the dividends, reinvested on the day the stock goes ex-dividend. The difference is small for a growth stock and large for a high-yield one over many years. Every return on the site says which it is: charts, the day’s move and the movers boards are price returns; lists, index tables and the overview cards are total returns; the screener, heatmaps and watchlists let you choose.

CAGR, not “per year”

Over long periods we show a compound annual growth rate: the steady yearly rate that turns the starting value into the ending one. We always label it CAGR, because an unlabeled “10% a year” can also mean the average of the yearly returns, which is higher whenever returns vary. A stock that doubled in five years has a CAGR of 14.9%, whatever happened in between.

See the definitions at work on top performers, or on any fund’s trailing returns.