How to use the stock return calculator
Enter the price you paid per share, the price you sold at (or the current price if you still own it), the total dividends you received per share while you held it, and how many years you owned the stock. Add the number of shares to see the result in dollars. The calculator reports your total return, the return from price changes alone, and the annualized return that makes this investment comparable with any other.
You can find historical prices on any stock's history page and the dividends it paid on its dividends page. For example, the Apple stock price history and Apple dividend history pages provide both inputs for AAPL.
The formulas
Total return = (P1 + D − P0) ÷ P0 Price return = (P1 − P0) ÷ P0 Annualized (CAGR) = (1 + Total return)^(1 ÷ t) − 1 Dollar gain = (P1 + D − P0) × Shares
Total return versus price return
Price return only measures how much the share price moved. Total return also counts the cash dividends you received, which is the true measure of what an investment earned you. For dividend-paying companies the difference can be large: over long periods, dividends have accounted for a significant share of the US stock market's total return. This calculator adds dividends as cash without assuming they were reinvested; reinvesting would make the result slightly higher if the stock rose afterward. To model reinvestment, try the dividend calculator.
Why annualized return is the number to compare
A 50% gain sounds impressive, but it means something very different over two years than over fifteen. Annualizing converts any holding period into an equivalent yearly rate. That makes it possible to compare a stock you held for three years with an index fund you held for ten, or with the long-run average of the S&P 500. For holding periods shorter than one year, the annualized figure extrapolates the gain to a full year, which can overstate it, so focus on total return for short trades.
Want to project growth forward instead of measuring the past? Use the compound interest calculator.