Money-Weighted Return (MWRR / XIRR) Calculator
Enter every cash flow with its date. Use negative amounts for money invested and positive amounts for money received (withdrawals or ending portfolio value).
| Date | Cash Flow Amount | Action |
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What is a money-weighted return?
A money-weighted return (MWRR) measures your portfolio performance while accounting for the size and timing of your cash flows. In plain terms, it answers this question: “What annual return did I personally earn, given when I added or withdrew money?”
This makes MWRR especially useful for real investors, because most of us do not invest one lump sum and leave it untouched. We contribute monthly, rebalance, withdraw for life events, and sometimes make large one-time deposits. MWRR captures all of that behavior.
How this calculator works
The calculator computes XIRR, which is an annualized internal rate of return using exact dates. It finds the rate that sets the net present value (NPV) of all your cash flows to zero.
Cash flow sign convention
- Negative value: money you contribute (cash leaving your pocket).
- Positive value: money you receive (withdrawals, dividends paid out, ending account value).
- Include the final portfolio value as a positive cash flow on the measurement end date.
Quick example
- Jan 1, 2023: -10,000 (initial investment)
- Jan 1, 2024: -2,000 (additional contribution)
- Jan 1, 2025: +1,000 (withdrawal)
- Today: +14,500 (final account value)
The calculator uses these dated cash flows to produce your annualized money-weighted return.
MWRR vs time-weighted return (TWR)
MWRR and TWR are both valid, but they answer different questions:
- MWRR: “How did my dollars perform?” Great for personal performance tracking.
- TWR: “How did the strategy/manager perform regardless of investor cash flow timing?” Great for manager comparison.
If you added a lot of money right before a market decline, your MWRR may look worse than TWR. That does not mean the strategy failed; it means your timing and amount of contributions mattered.
When to use this tool
- Evaluating your own brokerage, retirement, or crypto portfolio performance.
- Comparing portfolio results against long-term goals.
- Reviewing whether contribution timing helped or hurt your realized outcome.
- Checking annualized return across irregular cash flow dates.
Common mistakes to avoid
1) Wrong signs
Incorrect signs are the #1 issue. Contributions must be negative and withdrawals/final value positive.
2) Forgetting ending value
If you do not include final account value, the return will be meaningless because the full investment cycle is incomplete.
3) Using rounded or estimated dates
Because XIRR uses exact timing, better date precision gives better return accuracy.
4) Comparing short periods too aggressively
A one- or two-month MWRR can be noisy. Use longer horizons (1, 3, 5+ years) for more stable insights.
Formula intuition
XIRR solves this equation:
Σ [ CashFlowi / (1 + r)(daysi - days0) / 365 ] = 0
The unknown variable is r, your annualized money-weighted return. Because there is no simple closed-form solution, calculators use numerical methods (like Newton-Raphson and bisection) to solve it.
Final thoughts
Money-weighted return is one of the most practical performance metrics for everyday investors. It reflects your real behavior: when you invested, how much you invested, and when you took money out. Use it together with goal tracking, risk awareness, and benchmark comparison for the best picture of progress.