Portfolio XIRR vs gain: reading your returns across funds

Why does the portfolio show two different returns?

Open an imported portfolio and the top card shows a gain in rupees and percent, and beside it an XIRR that can be a third of that figure. Both are right. They answer different questions, and the page labels both so they are not read as the same thing.

This post reads the return figures on the Portfolio page for a hypothetical investor. The page needs a free account and an imported CAS statement.

The hypothetical investor

The investor is invented; the funds and NAVs are real, priced as of 15 October 2026. From January 2021 they ran a ₹5,000 SIP on the 10th of every month in four Direct Growth funds: UTI Nifty 50 Index Fund, ICICI Prudential Large Cap Fund, Kotak Flexi Cap Fund and HDFC Mid Cap Fund. They redeemed ₹1.5 lakh from the mid-cap fund on 10 March 2025 and put ₹2 lakh into HDFC Corporate Bond Fund on 15 June 2023.

What the top card shows

Each label has a hint on hover or tap that says the same in a sentence.

Gain and XIRR: why +41.5% and 13.1% agree

The gain chip says the units still held are worth 41.5% more than they cost. It does not care whether a rupee went in five years ago or last month. In an SIP portfolio most of the money is recent, so a five-year span with 41.5% on top is not 41.5% a year or anything close.

XIRR solves for the single yearly rate that turns every outflow (each instalment, on its date) and inflow (the ₹1.5 lakh redemption, plus today's value) into zero. It counts money already taken out, which the gain chip does not. The guide to absolute return, CAGR and XIRR works through the difference.

vs Nifty 50 TRI: a replay, not a rebased index

The benchmark figure does not draw the index from your start date. It takes each of your cash flows and buys or sells the Nifty 50 total return index on that same day instead. Then it computes an XIRR on that replay. The two XIRRs differ in only one input, what the money was invested in, so the gap is a fair statement about fund choice.

Here the replay earns 6.7% a year and the portfolio 13.1%: ▲ 6.4pp. The total-return index includes dividends, as fund NAVs do, so the comparison is like for like. The replay includes the corporate bond money too. A portfolio with a debt sleeve is being compared with an all-equity alternative.

vs your own funds: what timing did

This figure takes each fund's own return from your first purchase to today. It weights those returns by what each holding is worth now. Here that blend is 13.7% a year against the investor's 13.1% XIRR, so timing cost 0.5 points. Buying more when prices were low pushes this positive; buying into strength pushes it negative. Holdings under a year old are left out.

The per-fund figures behind the blend are not a column on the page. Computed with the same rule, they show where the gap came from:

The index, large-cap and flexi-cap SIPs trail their funds by three to four points. Most of their money went in after January 2021, at NAVs well above the first instalment's, so it had less of the fund's rise to ride. The mid-cap row runs the other way: its instalments, and the ₹1.5 lakh taken out in March 2025, happened to sit well against the fund's own path. The bond fund was one lump sum, so its XIRR and the fund's return are the same.

The XIRR column in Holdings

The Holdings tab of Portfolio repeats the money-weighted view per row, in the XIRR column beside Gain/loss. Its hint says it plainly: a fund bought last month and one held nine years can show the same gain and very different XIRRs. The Performers & risk tab ranks funds by gain in a "Gain since purchase, by fund" chart; hovering a bar adds the XIRR.

Above the tabs, a strip shows 1D, 1M, 1Y and 3Y moves. These price today's units backwards. They describe how the funds moved, not profit you made, and only 1D carries a rupee figure.

When the XIRR is missing

The headline XIRR waits until money has been in for a year on average, weighted by rupees. A new investor sees a dash with "once your money has been in a year — N days so far". It is also withheld when the statement starts after your first purchase, because units with no recorded cost would inflate it.

What the figures do not tell you

They are history on your own statement. XIRR does not forecast, and a fund ahead of the Nifty over five years may trail it over the next five. The SIP XIRR spreadsheet walkthrough shows how to check a figure by hand, and whether your SIP date matters covers one timing question that does not. The solver and replay are described on the methodology page. Nothing here is a recommendation about any fund.