Capital Gains & Price Growth Guide
Dividends are only half of the total return story. The new Capital Gains & Price Growth tools in DividendSim let you layer in realistic share price moves based on 1, 3, and 5 year historical returns. You can now see how much of your portfolio’s future value comes from capital appreciation versus pure dividend income.
This guide walks through how DividendSim reads price history, how 5-year total return appears in Browse Stocks, how to use the new Historical Capital gains selector on the Stock Detail page, and how the Advanced toggle in your portfolio lets you track capital gains and losses across every holding.
You can try all of this live at DividendSim.com.
1. How DividendSim Uses Historical Capital Gains
For each supported ticker, DividendSim stores historical share prices at 1 year, 3 year, and 5 year lookbacks (when data is available). From those prices it calculates:
- Total return over 1, 3, and 5 years – for example “5Y Total Return: +21.98%”.
- Annualized growth (CAGR) for 3 and 5 years.
- Monthly growth rate that the simulator uses to move the share price over time.
Under the hood, DividendSim converts a total return into a smooth monthly rate using compound growth. For example, if a stock returned +60% over 5 years, the simulator finds the single monthly rate that would compound to that same result across 60 months. That monthly rate can be positive or negative, so long-term losers correctly drag your portfolio down instead of up.
If a chosen horizon isn’t available for a ticker (for example it doesn’t have a full 5-year history yet), that option simply shows as N/A or None in the dropdown so you know there isn’t enough data for that period.
2. Browse Stocks: Check 5-Year Total Return
The first place you’ll see the new capital gains data is on the Browse Stocks page. Next to yield and monthly income you’ll now find a 5Y Total Return (%) column.
This number answers a simple question: “What happened to the share price over the last five years?” A high positive value points to strong capital appreciation; large negative values highlight stocks that have been punished over the same window.
- Sort by 5Y Total Return to see long-term winners and losers.
- Combine with yield to find stocks that have paid consistently and grown in price.
- Spot value traps where yield looks high but the 5-year return is deeply negative.
3. Stock Detail: Apply Historical Capital Gains to a Single Ticker
On the Stock Detail page you can now tell DividendSim exactly which historical horizon to use when simulating price growth for a single ticker.
Under the simulation inputs you’ll find a new control:
- Historical Capital gains – choose between:
- None – no price growth is applied; the share price is held flat.
- 1 Year – short-term trend, useful for very recent turnarounds.
- 3 Year – middle-ground view that smooths some noise.
- 5 Year – long-term trend, best for seeing how the stock behaves through multiple market cycles.
When you pick an option, the dropdown shows the annualized rate in parentheses, such as 3 Year (+3.49%). That percentage is the historical average annual price change backed into a compound monthly rate for the simulator.
Everything else on Stock Detail works exactly the same:
- Your DRIP setting still controls whether dividends buy more shares.
- Monthly contributions still add fresh capital every month.
- The summary now includes a Capital Gain/Loss line so you can see how much of the final value came from price changes versus dividends and contributions.
4. Portfolio: Use the Advanced Toggle for Per-Holding Capital Gains
The third place capital gains show up is in your Portfolio. By default, the portfolio continues to behave like a dividend-only view. To turn on price growth controls for each holding, flip the Advanced toggle at the top of the page.
When Advanced mode is on, each row in your portfolio gains an extra control:
- Capital gains / losses Avg – choose 1, 3, or 5 years of history for that specific ticker. The dropdown shows the annualized rate for the horizon you picked, such as 3 Years (+9.60%).
- None – always available if you don’t want price growth modeled for that particular holding.
- Per-holding control – one stock can use a 1-year trend while another uses a 5-year trend. You’re not locked into one global setting.
- Saved between sessions – once you’ve dialed in the horizons for each position, DividendSim remembers them the next time you open your portfolio.
Behind the scenes, each selection is converted into a monthly rate and applied to that ticker’s share price over the full simulation period. Monthly dividends, DRIP, and contributions continue to work exactly as before – you’re just adding the extra dimension of capital appreciation or loss to the same timeline.
The portfolio summary also includes a Capital Gain/Loss line so you can see the total price impact across all holdings separately from dividends and contributions.
5. Read the Capital Gain / Loss Impact in Your Results
With Advanced mode enabled and horizons selected for each holding, your portfolio results include a dedicated Capital Gain/Loss Impact value.
Think of this number as the extra boost (or drag) from price movement alone:
- If the value is positive, your portfolio is benefiting from long-term price appreciation on top of dividends.
- If the value is negative, capital losses are offsetting some of your dividend income and contributions.
- Combined with your existing ending value and monthly income stats, it gives a much clearer picture of where your total return is really coming from.
You’ll see a similar Capital Gain/Loss value on both the Stock Detail summary and the Portfolio results, so it’s easy to compare single-position impact with portfolio-wide price movement.
6. Ideas for Using Capital Gains in Your Strategy
Here are a few ways to use these new tools as you build or refine a dividend strategy:
- Compare “income only” vs “total return” plans – run your portfolio with Advanced off, then turn it on with realistic horizons to see the difference.
- Stress-test weaker holdings – set negative or low-growth tickers to their 5-year history and see how much they pull down your long-term results.
- Model re-rating potential – for a stock you believe is recovering, switch between 1-year and 3-year history to see how a trend change affects outcomes.
- Balance growth and income – mix high-yield/low-growth tickers with lower yield but stronger long-term price appreciation and see how the combination changes your path to a target monthly income.
Capital gains don’t replace dividends – they complete the picture. With the new Capital Gains & Price Growth tools in DividendSim, you can keep the same simple, month-by-month DRIP simulations while layering in realistic historical price behavior for each holding in your portfolio.
When you’re ready to experiment, open DividendSim.com, browse a few stocks, and flip on Advanced mode in your portfolio to see how capital gains shape your long-term plan.