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Computing mutual fund return between given days

Step 1: Go to http://chart.yahoo.com/d [note: no "www"]

Step 2: Enter the fund ticker symbol (arrow #1), the date range for which you want prices (in this case, December 31, 2001 - January 8, 2002; arrow #2), and the frequency with which you want those prices (in this case, daily; arrow #3). Click the button to "Get Data."



Step 3: The small table that you see below will then come up. To compute the difference between the "8-Jan" closing price (Net Asset Value, or NAV) and the "31-Dec" closing price (which is also the January 2 opening price), subtract the December 31 return from the January 8 return, and divide by the December 31 return. In this case, that's ((24.66-24.39)/24.39), or 1.107% (which we have rounded to 1.11%) -- the return of PBHG Select Equity (PBHEX) for the period January 2 - January 8, 2002. Note that this method of computing fund returns does not work if there has been a dividend distribution between dates.