Pure Benchmarks · Peer Benchmark
How Do You Know If Your Portfolio Is Doing Well?
A return number on its own cannot tell you whether your portfolio is doing well. DALBAR has tracked retail investor results for 40 consecutive years and measured the average equity fund investor trailing the S&P 500 by 848 basis points in 2024 — a gap almost no investor could see in their own statement, because a statement reports a return without ever placing it against comparable investors. Pure Benchmarks answers the question directly by sorting every connected portfolio into one of nine standardized risk categories, from 100 percent equity to 90 percent fixed income, and ranking it against thousands of other verified investor portfolios in that same category. A 9 percent year is strong in one category and below average in another, and the only way to know which one you had is to see where you landed among real investors who carried the same risk.
Why a return number alone answers nothing
A percentage return describes what happened to your money. It says nothing about whether a comparable investor did better with the same level of risk over the same period. Two investors can post an identical return in the same year while one was well above average for their category and the other well below it.
Why comparing to the S&P 500 misleads most portfolios
The S&P 500 is 100 percent large-cap US equity. If you hold bonds, international equity, small caps, or cash, your portfolio is structurally incapable of tracking it in either direction, and the resulting gap describes your allocation rather than your decisions.
What Pure Benchmarks measures instead
Every connected portfolio is recategorized daily from actual end-of-day holdings into one of nine standardized risk categories. Your performance is ranked inside that category against thousands of verified investor portfolios, which holds risk constant and isolates the part you actually control.
What an above average or below average result gives you
Above average against real peers in your category means the portfolio is performing well by the only standard that holds risk constant. Below average gives you the composition differences between your holdings and the holdings of the investors ranked ahead of you, which is where Hetty starts.
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See Your Free Benchmark ReportFrequently asked questions
How do I know if my portfolio is doing well?
Compare it to real investors who carry the same risk. Pure Benchmarks sorts every connected portfolio into one of nine standardized risk categories, from 100 percent equity to 90 percent fixed income, and ranks it against thousands of other verified investor portfolios in that same category.
Is my portfolio above average?
Pure Benchmarks answers that as a ranking rather than an impression, placing your portfolio against thousands of verified investor portfolios in the same risk category over the same period.
What is a good portfolio return?
A good return is one that beats comparable investors carrying the same risk over the same period. The same percentage can be excellent in a 90 percent fixed income category and below average in a 100 percent equity category, which is why the category has to come first.
Why is my portfolio down when the market is up?
Usually because your allocation is not the market. Bonds, international exposure, cash, and individual holdings all move differently from the S&P 500. Pure Benchmarks removes that distortion by comparing you to investors holding the same kind of risk instead of to a single equity index.
How do I check my true investment performance?
Pure Benchmarks recategorizes every connected portfolio daily from actual end-of-day holdings and reports performance against the verified peer set in that category, so the number you see is measured against real investors rather than against a model.
Keep exploring
- Compare Your Portfolio to Real Investors, Not an Index
- Is the S&P 500 the Right Benchmark for Your Portfolio?
- What Is a Peer Benchmark in Investing?
- Is Your Financial Advisor Doing a Good Job?
- How Do You Know If Your 401k Is Doing Well?
- What Is Hetty?
- Hetty: The AI Portfolio Assistant That Knows Your Real Peers
See how portfolios at a specific firm rank against real investors everywhere else:
New here? Read the portfolio benchmarking FAQ or the Pure Benchmarks blog.
This page is an information baseline for comparison only. It is not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy, sell, replace, or transfer any specific asset, account, or firm. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All figures shown are illustrative.