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A short reference for the terms used across Wealthfolio’s app and docs. Use it when a metric or concept is unfamiliar — every entry links out to the deeper concept doc where applicable.

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Performance & returns

TWR — Time-Weighted Return

The return of your underlying investments with the impact of contributions and withdrawals stripped out. Comparable to a benchmark (e.g. SPY). Wealthfolio shows TWR at the total portfolio level by default. See Performance Metrics.

MWR — Money-Weighted Return

The return of you as an investor — includes the impact of when you bought and sold (timing decisions). Equivalent to the IRR of your cash flows. Wealthfolio shows MWR at the per-account level by default.

Modified Dietz

A simplified MWR approximation that’s faster to compute and stable across daily recompute. Wealthfolio uses Modified Dietz under the hood for per-account return.

Realised gain / loss

The profit or loss locked in when you sell. Computed as proceeds minus the cost basis of the lots closed by the sale.

Unrealised gain / loss

The on-paper profit or loss on positions you still hold — current market value minus cost basis. Becomes realised when you sell.

Drawdown

The peak-to-trough decline of your portfolio over a period, expressed as a percentage of the peak. Useful for sizing how rough a downturn was.

Maximum drawdown (Max DD)

The largest drawdown observed over the whole period being analysed.

Volatility

The standard deviation of returns over a period. Higher numbers = bumpier ride. Wealthfolio computes daily volatility and annualises it for reporting.

Annualised return

A return rate normalised to a one-year period, so 3-month, 5-year, and YTD returns can be compared apples-to-apples.

Benchmark

A reference portfolio (often a broad index like SPY or VTI) you compare your own return to. Lets you ask “did I beat the market?”

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Cost basis & lots

Cost basis

What you paid for a position, used to compute realised gain/loss when you sell. In Wealthfolio, cost basis is tracked at the lot level.

Lot

A single unit of cost basis — usually one BUY (or one DRIP, one staking reward). Selling closes lots in FIFO order. See Cost Basis & Lots.

FIFO — First In, First Out

The lot-selection method Wealthfolio uses: when you sell, the oldest lot is closed first. The default in most jurisdictions; matches what your broker typically reports for tax purposes.

LIFO — Last In, First Out

An alternative cost-basis method (sell the newest lots first). Used in some US tax strategies. Not yet supported in Wealthfolio; planned for a future version.

ACB — Adjusted Cost Base

Canadian tax accounting’s term for the weighted-average cost per share. Not natively computed today (FIFO is used); planned for a future version.

Weighted-Average Cost (WAC)

The cost basis method where every share carries the same per-unit cost, recomputed as a running total cost ÷ total quantity after each buy — also called moving-average cost (gleitender Durchschnittspreis in Austria/Germany). Common in mutual fund and Canadian tax accounting, and mandatory in some jurisdictions. Not yet computed in Wealthfolio, which uses FIFO (planned for a future version); the “average cost” shown on a holding is a display figure over your open FIFO lots, not a moving average.

Specific identification

A cost-basis method where you pick which lots to close on each sale (typically for tax-loss harvesting). Not yet supported.

Fractional share

A position quantity that isn’t a whole number. Wealthfolio tracks lots to eight decimal places, so DRIP fractions, crypto satoshis, and broker fractional-share programs all work.

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Activities & subtypes

Activity

Wealthfolio’s atomic event: every BUY, SELL, dividend, transfer, fee, etc. Activities are the source of truth — all portfolio state is derived from them. See Activity Types.

Subtype

A semantic variation on an activity type (e.g. DRIP on DIVIDEND, Staking Reward on INTEREST, Option Expiry on ADJUSTMENT). Wealthfolio expands subtypes into canonical postings under the hood.

DRIP — Dividend Reinvestment Plan

A dividend automatically reinvested into more shares of the same security. In Wealthfolio: DIVIDEND activity with the DRIP subtype.

Dividend in Kind

A dividend paid as additional shares (often from a spin-off). DIVIDEND activity with the Dividend in Kind subtype.

Staking reward

Crypto income received as additional tokens for staking. INTEREST activity with the Staking Reward subtype.

External flow

A TRANSFER_IN or TRANSFER_OUT with the External flag checked — represents an asset or cash moving in from / out to a world Wealthfolio doesn’t track (opening balances, gifts, write-offs, crypto sent to a wallet).

Internal flow

A TRANSFER_IN or TRANSFER_OUT paired with a matching activity on another Wealthfolio account. Cost basis travels between accounts; no new capital enters your portfolio.

Net contribution

The sum of capital actually deposited into your portfolio (deposits + external transfers in − withdrawals − external transfers out). Used to distinguish “did you make money?” from “did you put money in?”

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Symbols & market data

Ticker

A short identifier for a security (e.g. AAPL, RY, BTC). Wealthfolio stores a canonical ticker per asset.

MIC — Market Identifier Code

An ISO 10383 four-letter exchange code (e.g. XNAS for NASDAQ, XTSE for Toronto, XLON for London). Wealthfolio uses MIC + ticker as the provider-agnostic identifier for an asset.

ISIN — International Securities Identification Number

A 12-character globally-unique identifier (e.g. US0378331005 for Apple). Required by some providers (OpenFIGI) and a fallback when ticker disambiguation is hard.

CUSIP

A 9-character US/Canada securities identifier, often used for bonds.

FIGI — Financial Instrument Global Identifier

A 12-character Bloomberg-standard global identifier. Used by the OpenFIGI provider for bond and identifier lookup.

Provider

A source of market data — Yahoo Finance, Alpha Vantage, Finnhub, OpenFIGI, Börse Frankfurt, Metal Price API, US Treasury Calc, and user-defined custom providers. See Market Data & FX.

Preferred provider

The provider Wealthfolio prefers when fetching quotes for a given asset. Set per asset under the Market Data tab.

Per-provider override

A symbol override stored on an asset for a specific provider — used when a provider expects a different symbol format than the canonical one (e.g. SHOP-CA instead of SHOP).

Circuit breaker

A reliability pattern in the market-data layer: after a provider fails N times in a row, it’s marked unhealthy and skipped until a backoff period expires. Stops runaway retries when an external API is down.

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Currency & FX

Base currency

The currency every aggregated total in Wealthfolio is reported in. Set in Settings → Preferences.

Account currency

The currency a specific account is denominated in (e.g. a USD brokerage, a EUR bank account). Set at account creation and cannot be changed.

Asset / holding currency

The currency a specific security trades in (e.g. a Tokyo-listed stock has JPY asset currency).

Activity currency

The currency a specific transaction was settled in (e.g. you may buy a USD stock through your CAD account; the activity currency is USD).

FX rate

The exchange rate between two currencies on a given date. Wealthfolio uses the trade-date rate to convert each activity into base currency, then today’s rate for live displays.

Minor currency unit

A sub-unit of a major currency (GBp / GBX = British pence; ZAc = South African cents; ILA = Israeli agorot). Wealthfolio normalises these to the major currency automatically at the appropriate factor.

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Dividends & income

Dividend yield

A security’s annual dividend per share divided by its current price, expressed as a percentage. Quick proxy for income return.

Yield on cost

The annual dividend per share divided by your cost basis per share, not the current price. A long-time holder of a growing company will see yield on cost climb even if the market yield stays flat.

Withholding tax

Tax deducted at source on dividends or interest, typically by the broker for the issuing jurisdiction. Recorded in Wealthfolio as a TAX activity.

Ex-dividend date

The cutoff date for owning a security to receive an upcoming dividend. Buy on or after the ex-date and you miss the next payment.

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Account types & contribution limits

TFSA — Tax-Free Savings Account

A Canadian registered account where contributions are after-tax but growth and withdrawals are tax-free. Has an annual contribution limit.

RRSP — Registered Retirement Savings Plan

A Canadian registered account where contributions are tax-deductible and growth is tax-deferred until withdrawal. Annual contribution limit based on earned income.

FHSA — First Home Savings Account

A Canadian registered account combining TFSA-like growth with RRSP-like deductibility, earmarked for a first home purchase.

401(k) / Roth 401(k)

US employer-sponsored retirement accounts. Traditional 401(k) is pre-tax; Roth is after-tax with tax-free withdrawals.

IRA / Roth IRA

US individual retirement accounts. Traditional IRA is pre-tax; Roth is after-tax.

Contribution limit

The annual maximum you can deposit into a registered/retirement account. See Contribution Limits.

Carry-forward room

Unused contribution room from prior years that you can use in the current year (e.g. TFSA, RRSP).

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Portfolio planning

FIRE — Financial Independence, Retire Early

A movement / planning style focused on saving aggressively to reach financial independence well before traditional retirement age.

Safe withdrawal rate

The percentage of your portfolio you can withdraw annually with high confidence of not running out of money. The classic figure is 4% but Wealthfolio’s retirement simulator lets you stress-test your own number.

Glide path

How your asset allocation shifts as you age — typically more equity early, more bonds later.

Monte Carlo simulation

A planning technique that runs your portfolio through thousands of randomised return sequences to estimate the probability of meeting a goal, not just a single point estimate.

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App concepts

Account group

A logical grouping of multiple accounts (e.g. “Joint”, “Spouse RRSP”) used to roll up performance and net worth on the dashboard.

Holdings mode

An account tracking style where positions are seeded with External TRANSFER_IN activities rather than recorded BUY-by-BUY. Faster to set up, less precise performance math. See Tracking Modes.

Transactions mode

The full account tracking style — every BUY, SELL, DIVIDEND, INTEREST recorded. Precise performance math.

Snapshot

A pre-computed portfolio state at a specific date. Wealthfolio caches snapshots at strategic dates so the dashboard doesn’t replay the whole activity history on every load. Snapshots after a backdated edit are invalidated and rebuilt incrementally.

Custom provider

A user-defined market-data provider that fetches prices from any JSON API, HTML page, table, or CSV source. No coding required. See Custom Providers.

Connect

Wealthfolio’s optional paid service. Adds automatic broker sync (via SnapTrade) and end-to-end encrypted multi-device sync. See Connect.

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Need a term that isn’t here? Open an issue on GitHub — the glossary grows from real questions.

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