Why don't Yahoo Finance Charts show the Total Return (includes dividends and distributions) for mutual funds?

Question

Why don't Yahoo Finance Charts show the Total Return (includes dividends and distributions) for mutual funds?

Answer 1

First thing, not everybody reinvest their dividend.

Second, I guess it is because the Yahoo charts connect dots which represents the fund closing price of the day. If you want to see total return, then for each period, the chart will need to calculate all the prices before a dividend is generated.

i.e. say you are looking at a money market fund (which fund price is supposed to be $1 all the time and distribute end of month). On 6/1-6/4, price is $1. Say it distributed $0.1 on 5/31, then instead of displaying $1 on 5/31, you will need something like $0.9 (pardon my math).

This gets worse for stocks. You don't necessarily get the closing price when your broker re-invest you dividends.

I myself was asking the same question a while ago when I started investing. I guess if you really want that, you probably want to play with Excel a bit. Also, Morningstar has what you're looking for, but I believe it is just a static chart.

Have you ever seen some charts like that before? I'd like to check it out if you have seen it.