Benchmarks are the yardsticks you use to judge your portfolio's performance. Without one, a 10% return is just a number — with one, you can tell whether you actually beat the market, kept pace with it, or trailed behind.
In Capitally, a benchmark is anything that has a price series over time: a market index (S&P 500, MSCI World), an ETF or stock, a custom price series you imported, or even your own portfolio positions. You can add several benchmarks at once and see them all alongside your returns on the charts and in the table.
Adding a benchmark
Open the benchmarks selector from the Portfolio view and pick anything that has a price series:
- Market indexes like the S&P 500, MSCI World, Nasdaq 100, or DAX
- ETFs or individual stocks — just search for a ticker and add it
- Custom assets you created yourself, including any black-box investment with a manually tracked price
- Filters, Accounts and Account Folders
- Your own positions — see Position-prices benchmark below
Once added, the benchmark appears on rate of return charts.
Comparing against multiple benchmarks
You're not limited to picking one. Select up to 10 benchmarks at the same time and Capitally will draw them all on the same chart. This is useful when a single index doesn't tell the full story — for example, comparing a global portfolio against both the S&P 500 and MSCI World, or stacking a sector ETF next to a broad market index to see which one you're actually tracking.
Position-prices benchmark
The position-prices benchmark answers a different question: what would my return have been if I hadn't traded at all during this period?
Instead of comparing you to an external index, Capitally builds a hypothetical version of your own portfolio that holds a fixed allocation through the whole period — no buys, no sells. The difference between your actual return and that hypothetical return isolates the effect of your trading activity.
You can choose which allocation to hold constant:
- Position prices (start of period) — keeps the allocation you actually had at the start of the selected period. Answers "what if I'd done nothing since the start?".
- Position prices (end of period) — projects the allocation you ended the period with back to the beginning. Answers "what if I'd held today's mix the whole time?" for a closed period.
- Position prices (today) — uses your current allocation. Answers "what if I'd always held what I hold now?".
Example
Open 2025 with the start of period option. You'll see the return of a portfolio that, on January 1st 2025, held exactly what you held, and didn't touch it for the rest of the year. If your actual 2025 return is higher, your trades added value. If it's lower, you'd have been better off doing nothing.
How benchmarks are calculated
Benchmarks use the same rate of return methodology as your portfolio, so the comparison is apples-to-apples. Values are converted into your selected viewing currency using daily FX rates.
Tips
- Pin your favorite benchmarks in Settings -> Benchmarks so they're always visible when you switch between views.
- Combine an external benchmark (e.g. S&P 500) with the position-prices (start of period) benchmark to see two very different comparisons side by side: "did I beat the market?" and "did I beat just holding still?".