Why do I have a positive time-weighted return, but negative dollar return?

It is entirely possible to have a positive TWR but negative total return.

 

Your TWR is positive because your portfolio’s return has increased in value since your first deposit. You can see that in the graph of the “Performance” tab in your app.

 

However, in this case, you could still have negative dollar returns if you deposited the majority of your funds in this portfolio when the market was higher than it is now.

 

Here’s a quick example of when this might be the case:

Let’s say you deposited $100 in January in your StashAway account, and then the market goes up 10% by September. You’d have $110 in your account. Then, you get a $1,000 bonus and decide to invest it all at once, but the market goes down 5% over the next three months. In this scenario, your portfolio value would be $1,054.50 by December for a total of $1,100 invested. So you’d have lost $45.50.

 

But this was not because the portfolio has performed poorly thus far- it went up 10% between January and September and then it went down just 5% between September and December. However, most of your money was invested right before markets went down.

 

Your time-weighted return is positive because the performance of the first deposit of your investment has performed well between January and December, but your simple dollar return is still negative because of when you decided to make your deposits.