# Using the investments dashboard

> Three tabs, one filter that runs through all of them, and a period selector that changes every number on the page. This is the screen the metrics glossary exists to explain.

The investments dashboard is where your portfolio is examined rather than glanced at. It has three
tabs, and two controls that change everything on all of them.

Before relying on the return percentages, read
[about these numbers](/metrics/about-these-numbers). The app currently flags them as being
reworked; values and holdings are unaffected.

## The two controls that change everything

**The period.** 1M, 3M, 6M, 1Y, All, or a custom range. Every figure on every tab recalculates for
the window you pick, which is why a Sharpe ratio from a one-year window and a five-year one are not
comparable. This catches people out more than anything else on the screen.

**The filter.** Whatever you have narrowed to follows you between tabs. Filter to your crypto on
Overview, switch to Performance, and you are looking at the performance of that crypto rather than
of everything.

A summary strip sits above the tabs with cost basis, unrealised and realised profit and loss, the
position count, and short-period performance. It reflects the current filter too.

## Overview: what you hold

**The diversification donut** is the fastest way to see shape. Pick a dimension and it redraws:
sector, industry, market cap, continent, country, currency, exchange, security type, broker, or
**strategy**, which is your own [tags](/guides/tagging-holdings).

Click a slice and it becomes a filter. Click slices across different dimensions and they combine, so
"European technology holdings" is two clicks rather than a spreadsheet.

**The holdings table** below it narrows to whatever the donut is filtered to. Fourteen columns are
available and you choose which to show: quantity, value, price,
[average cost](/concepts/average-cost), [cost basis](/concepts/cost-basis),
[unrealised](/concepts/unrealised-and-realised-return), return, realised,
[weight](/concepts/position-weight), [yield](/concepts/dividend-yield),
[yield on cost](/concepts/yield-on-cost), dividends over twelve months,
[thirty-day move](/concepts/thirty-day-move) and [holding period](/concepts/holding-period). Your
selection is remembered.

**Closed positions** sit below, collapsed, with their own separate column choice. That separation is
deliberate: a position you sold raises different questions from one you still hold, and an
unrealised figure on a position that no longer exists would read as a dash on every row.

## Performance: how it went

**The chart** plots your portfolio indexed against a benchmark you choose. Drag across it to zoom
into a window, or type dates. See [benchmarks](/concepts/benchmarks) for which to pick.

Alongside it: **money-weighted return**, both total and per year, and **invested (net)**, what you
actually put in. Money-weighted is the figure that accounts for when you invested rather than only
how the investments did. See
[time-weighted vs money-weighted](/concepts/time-weighted-vs-money-weighted-return).

**The risk grid** holds twelve measures, each with its explanation beside it, split between
standalone measures and ones relative to your benchmark. Every one has a page in
[metrics](/metrics).

**The monthly heatmap** shows each month green or red, with a year column that compounds the months
in it. Useful for seeing whether a good year was steady or one lucky month.

**Return drivers** answers the question the rest of the tab raises: which positions actually
produced this. Leaders and laggards, each with its own return and its **contribution in percentage
points**, which is how much it moved the portfolio overall. Those two are different: a small
position can double without moving your portfolio much.

If a selection has too little price history to chart, it says so rather than drawing a misleading
line.

## Dividends

Covered separately in [tracking dividends](/guides/tracking-dividends).

## Time travel

**Time travel** rebuilds the dashboard as it stood on a past date: what you held then, and what it
was worth then.

This is not the same as looking at a past window on the chart. The chart shows how today's story
unfolded; time travel shows the portfolio as it actually was, including positions you have since
sold entirely. Those appear marked as sold since.

**Back to today** returns you to the present.

## Getting the most from it

**Set the period before reading anything.** Every number obeys it.

**Use the donut as a filter, not just a picture.** Its value is the click, not the colours.

**Tag your holdings.** The strategy dimension is the only one that reflects your intent rather than
what the instruments are, and it is the one that answers questions no automatic categorisation can.
See [tagging holdings](/guides/tagging-holdings).

**Read contribution, not return, when explaining a change.** Return says how a position did;
contribution says how much it mattered.