Yahoo finance - where does it show the LT capital gains

Comments

• msf

  November 2013

  Mutual funds are no different from stocks in the way their prices are adjusted. On the ex-div date (the date at which one no longer is entitled to the dividend, whether cap gain or income), the price drops by the amount of the dividend. Any further movement is due to the normal price fluctuations as its portfolio changes in value.
  
  Don't worry too much about Yahoo. It is good for quick and dirty data, but there's a lot that it gets wrong. It didn't adjust for the fund's cap gain - according to Yahoo, if you had $37.45 invested in it a week ago (the adjusted value on Nov 20th), your investment (including dividends) is now worth just $35.96 (Nov 27th). That's wrong, the value didn't drop. M* says that an investment in the fund rose 1.03% over this period of time (1 week).
  
  You also need to watch out for funds that don't immediately pay out their dividends. MMFs and many bond funds declare dividends daily. That is, each day, you accrue a small dividend amount, but you don't get the money immediately. Each day, the price of the fund is adjusted downward slightly to adjust for the dividend that was declared. Just like a stock pays out its dividends many days after its record date, these MMFs and bond funds pay out the accrued dividends at some later date (typically at the end of each month).
  
  Other bond funds that don't declare dividends daily gradually rise in NAV over the month (or quarter) as the interest the fund receives is added to the value of each share. You can see a pretty clear example of this by looking at the price of RPHYX - over the period of a month it tends to rise 3-5c, and then drop back down when the monthly dividend is declared. Since RPHYX doesn't have much price fluctuation due to changes in market interest rates, the dominant factor is the accrual of interest and the monthly declaration of dividends.
  
  
• bnath001

  November 2013

  thanks msf.
• Investor

  December 2013

  Reply to @msf: Actually if you use adjusted close (instead of actual close) data from Yahoo you take into consideration of the dividends and capital gains distributions. Adjusted close is found in historical price tab.
  
  Adjusted close data changes for all prior days each time a new distribution is made so you should not use stale data in calculations. Percent calculations made through adjusted close is accurate for calculation of total return.
• msf

  December 2013

  Reply to @Investor: The problem is that just as Yahoo's historical price table for PRBLX does not have a line item for the latest cap gains distribution, neither is the distribution reflected in the adjusted close column. That's the column I was referring to ("adjusted value on Nov 20th" of $37.45.)
  
  Take a look. Adjusted prices match closing prices all the way back to the end of September (i.e. no adjustments for dividends past the 9/30 income dividend). Yet this fund paid out $1.8726/share in cap gains ten days ago as noted by Nath.
  
  Parnassus says the dividend was payable on Nov 22, at an NAV of $35.98 (a drop of $1.74 from the previous day, or roughly the amount of the dividend). The adjusted column price should have barely moved, but it dropped this same $1.74.
  
  Yahoo has its virtues (I don't know where else to find historical data so quickly, comprehensively, and cheaply), but accuracy is not its strong suit.
• bnath001

  December 2013

  thanks msf
• Investor

  December 2013 edited December 2013

  Reply to @msf: Sometimes yahoo is slow to incorporate the update. Give it some time. You can also send email if you see discrepancy.