About TickerGrow
Hi, I'm kkun. I'm an individual investor based in South Korea, and I built TickerGrow because I kept asking the same question every time I looked at a stock or an ETF: what would have actually happened if I had put money into this years ago? Not the price chart, which leaves out dividends, but the real number in my account.
Who is behind this site
I come from a computing background and have spent the last few years writing about the stock market for Korean readers on my blog and building jusikcalc.com, a Korean-language set of stock calculators for things like average cost, real returns after fees and taxes, and dividend income. Many of my readers in Korea invest in U.S. ETFs such as VOO, QQQ and SCHD, and the questions they asked me most were about U.S. funds and U.S. companies. TickerGrow is the English version of that work, rebuilt around U.S. tickers and U.S. tax rules.
I am not a financial adviser, broker or licensed professional, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell. I invest my own money, I make mistakes like everyone else, and the site is meant to show the math clearly so you can make your own decisions.
Where the numbers come from
Historical prices are monthly closes from Yahoo Finance, adjusted for stock splits and with dividends reinvested (total return). Last-close prices and dividends are refreshed every trading day. Calculators run entirely in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
How the numbers are worked out
Every return on the site uses total-return prices: the monthly closing price adjusted for splits, with each dividend assumed to be reinvested in the month it was paid. That is why a dividend stock such as Coca-Cola shows a much higher return here than on a plain price chart. Yearly figures are annualized, so a 10-year return of 159% shows as about 10% a year.
The what-if results assume you bought at the month's closing price and never sold. Monthly data is a simplification: it misses moves inside a month, so the real worst drops were usually a little deeper than shown. Dividend yields use the last 12 months of payments and the latest close. ETF details such as expense ratios come from the fund issuers and are checked by hand, and every page says when its data was last updated.
How the ticker pages are written
The numbers on each ETF and stock page, from the what-if answers to the year-by-year table and the dividend history, are calculated directly from the price data, so they update on their own. The explanations, such as what a fund holds, why a stock fell in a given year, or what a split did to the share count, are written by me for each ticker. If you think one of them is wrong or out of date, I would genuinely like to know.
Why monthly investing and lump sums both appear
Most people do not invest one lump sum on a perfect day. They add money from each paycheck. So most pages show both: what a single $1,000 became, and what $500 a month became. The gap between the two is often the most useful number on the page.
How results should be used
Results are estimates meant to help you understand how investing works. They leave out state taxes, trading costs and your personal situation. Past performance does not tell you what will happen next. Please check important decisions with a qualified professional.
Spot a mistake?
Email me at [email protected]. Corrections are fixed and the page is rebuilt, usually within a day.