What is price-only return vs total return?

Price-only return measures only the change in share price between two dates. Total return adds dividends back in - either as cash or as reinvested shares. For dividend payers the gap can be significant, especially over long periods.

How is the share count calculated?

We divide your investment dollars by the start-period split-adjusted close to get a fractional share count, then multiply by the end-period split-adjusted close to get the end value.

Stock Return Calculator (Price-Only)

Stock Return (Price-Only) iPrice-only return: change in share price between two dates, ignoring dividends. The Total Return calculator adds dividends back in.

Pick a stock or use Manual mode iIn ticker mode we fetch split-adjusted daily price history from a public market feed. In manual mode you enter a hypothetical start price, end price, and years - useful for back-of-envelope checks.

Period 1 year 3 years 5 years 10 years Max available Custom range

Investment amount (USD)

Methodology & full breakdown

Formula

priceReturn = (endPrice - startPrice) / startPrice; endValue = startInvestment * (endPrice / startPrice); shareCount = startInvestment / startPrice; cagr = (endPrice / startPrice)^(1/years) - 1.

Price source

Yahoo Finance v8 chart endpoint, adj_close field. This is split-adjusted close. We do not back-adjust for dividends in this view - that adjustment is what the Total Return calculator measures separately. For our 5-year and 10-year periods this typically tracks closely with raw split-only close; longer windows on heavy dividend payers will diverge somewhat.

Benchmark

SPY (the S&P 500 ETF), fetched at the same period and interval, computed identically.

Limitations

No dividends, no taxes, no transaction costs, no FX.
Final value is nominal (not inflation-adjusted).
Custom range is sliced client-side from the smallest covering preset to maximize cache reuse.
CAGR is suppressed for windows shorter than one year.

How It Works - How does the price-only return calculator work?

This calculator answers a single question: if you had bought a fixed dollar amount of a stock at the start of a window and sold at the end, ignoring dividends, what would you have made? It is the deliberate mirror of the Total Return calculator, which adds dividends back in. The gap between the two numbers is the dividend-impact story.

Pick a ticker (or switch to Manual mode for hypothetical numbers), pick a period (1, 3, 5, 10 years, max available, or a custom date range), and pick an investment amount. We fetch split-adjusted daily prices, take the first and last candles in the window, and compute price return, CAGR, end value, and a fractional share count. We also fetch SPY at the same period to give you a benchmark.

Things to keep in mind: this view does not adjust for dividends. For high-yield holders that gap can be significant over long windows. For sub-1-year windows we hide the CAGR (annualizing a one-month return is mathematically valid but statistically meaningless). For tickers with less history than your selected period, we use the available history and show the actual span in the headline.

Not financial advice. For informational and educational purposes only. Numbers come from public market data and may be stale. Always consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.