Methodology

High-level methodology summary for MVP launch. Exact implementation may evolve.

What RealReturns Shows

RealReturns visualizes historical price performance for a selected stock or ETF and can show comparisons across the instrument's origin currency and a selected target currency.

Price Series and Return Views

• Raw / Price: historical price series in the origin currency (default).
• Converted: the same series converted into the selected target currency.
• Total Return views: dividend-aware variants when dividend data is available.
• Inflation-adjusted views: real-value views based on the selected inflation country.
• Guessed-normalized mode (experimental): optional heuristic adjustments for suspected data anomalies. Raw mode remains unchanged.

Anomaly Detection and Experimental Normalization

RealReturns can detect suspicious patterns in source data, such as unusually large dividend outliers relative to recent history or price discontinuities consistent with potentially missing split records.

When anomalies are detected, the app shows a warning and anomaly tags in chart details. In optional guessed-normalized mode, only high-confidence cases may be adjusted, while ambiguous overlap cases remain unadjusted and are explicitly flagged.

These adjustments are heuristic and are intended for exploratory analysis. They are not a substitute for official issuer filings or audited corporate action records.

Dividend Reinvestment Assumption

When dividend reinvestment is applied, the increase in share count is estimated using the end-of-day (EOD) price on the recorded dividend payment date.

This simplified assumption does not account for withholding taxes, brokerage commissions, transaction fees, spreads, lot-size constraints, or timing differences in actual dividend reinvestment execution.

Currency Conversion

RealReturns applies historical FX rates to convert origin-currency values into the selected target currency. FX data coverage and timing may differ from trading-session timestamps and brokerage conversion rates.

Inflation Adjustment

When enabled, RealReturns adjusts values using CPI index data for the selected country. CPI series are typically monthly and may be interpolated for daily chart points.

Chart Periods and Selected Ranges

Quick stats and chart summaries reflect the currently visible period (for example 1Y, 5Y, or ALL) and may further update to match a manually selected sub-range on the chart.

Known Limitations

• Data may be delayed, revised, or missing for some symbols/markets.
• Corporate actions and dividends depend on source coverage and data quality.
• Anomaly detection and guessed-normalized mode are best-effort heuristics and can produce false positives or false negatives.
• Results may differ from broker statements, fund factsheets, or benchmark methodologies.
• Company descriptions may come from third-party sources or AI-assisted generation.

See the Disclaimer and Data Sources pages for important limitations and source information.