📊 Stock Return
Calculate investment return on stocks
How it works
When you buy a stock, your true profit is not just how much the share price moved. If the company paid you dividends along the way, those count too — and for many Canadian blue chips, like the big banks, dividends are a large part of the total payout. This calculator combines price appreciation and dividends into a single number: your total return. It also converts that into an annualized figure, which lets you fairly compare a six-month winner against a stock you have held for five years.
Why does annualizing matter? A 40% gain sounds amazing until you learn it took eight years to earn — roughly 4.3% per year. Annualized return, also called the compound annual growth rate (CAGR), smooths the ride into one per-year rate — the same language fund managers and benchmarks use.
The formula
Total return = ((Ending value − Beginning value + Dividends received) ÷ Beginning value) × 100. In plain words: add up everything you ended up with — sale proceeds plus every dividend paid while you owned the shares — subtract what you put in, and divide by what you put in. For the annualized version: CAGR = (Ending value ÷ Beginning value)^(1 ÷ years) − 1. That exponent quietly does all the compounding work for you.
Worked example
You buy 100 shares at $40, investing $4,000. Two years later you sell at $52, receiving $5,200, and the company paid you $300 in dividends along the way. Total proceeds: $5,200 + $300 = $5,500. Your gain: $5,500 − $4,000 = $1,500. Total return: $1,500 ÷ $4,000 = 37.5%. Annualized: (5,500 ÷ 4,000)^(1 ÷ 2) − 1 = (1.375)^0.5 − 1 ≈ 0.173, or about 17.3% per year.
Frequently asked questions
Why bother adding dividends?
Because ignoring them understates your real gain. A stock that rose 5% but paid a 4% dividend actually returned roughly 9% — nearly double what the price chart suggests.
Does this include brokerage commissions or taxes?
No. Commissions shrink your real return, and in a non-registered account capital gains and dividends are taxable. Run the calculator on pre-fee numbers, then mentally trim the result for costs.
What counts as a good return?
Broad markets like the TSX Composite and the S&P 500 have averaged around 7–10% per year over long stretches, before inflation. Beating that consistently is genuinely hard.