Pure Benchmarks · Guide

Did My Trading Beat Buy and Hold?

Short answer

Total return cannot answer this, because it has no comparison. You need a buy-and-hold counterfactual: freeze the portfolio exactly as it stood before each change, run that do-nothing version forward on real prices alongside the portfolio you actually traded, and read the dollar gap. Most portfolio tools benchmark you against an index instead, which answers a different question.

Beating the market and beating yourself are two different tests, and almost every portfolio tool only runs the first. Comparing your return to the S&P 500 tells you whether you kept up with an index that holds nothing you hold. It says nothing about whether the twelve trades you placed last year were better than placing none of them. Answering that requires a buy-and-hold counterfactual: the portfolio you would still own if you had left it alone, priced forward on the same days as the portfolio you actually own. This page explains what that calculation needs, why total return cannot substitute for it, and which tools run it.

Why total return cannot answer this

A return figure is a score with no opponent. If your portfolio is up 11 percent, that number contains the market, your allocation, your deposits, your timing and every trade you made, fused into one figure with no way to separate them. The trade you regret and the trade you are proud of are both inside it. To isolate the trading, you need a version of the portfolio that is identical in every respect except that the trading did not happen.

What a buy-and-hold counterfactual actually requires

Three things, and the third is where most tools stop. First, the exact holdings and quantities as they stood the instant before the change, not a monthly snapshot. Second, real end-of-day prices for those holdings on every day since, including splits and dividends. Third, correct handling of the cash: a sale that was never made means cash that never arrived, and a purchase that was never made means cash that was never spent, so the do-nothing portfolio has to carry a different cash balance forward than the real one. Get the cash wrong and the comparison silently flatters whichever side you prefer.

Deposits and withdrawals will distort this if you let them

If you added money between the change and today, the traded portfolio grew for a reason that has nothing to do with the trade. The comparison has to treat external money as external on both sides, which in practice means measuring time-weighted rather than simply comparing end balances. Any tool that compares two ending balances without adjusting for contributions is producing a number that mostly measures your savings rate.

Why an index benchmark is not a substitute

An index did not hold what you held, did not pay what you paid, and never sold anything in a panic. Comparing against it tells you whether you kept pace with a portfolio you never owned. The do-nothing version of your own portfolio is a fairer opponent, because it starts from exactly your positions and differs only by the decisions under review. Both baselines are useful and they answer different questions.

A second baseline worth having

Beating your own do-nothing portfolio tells you the trade added value. It does not tell you whether that result was unusual. Comparing against other real portfolios with a similar mix of stocks and bonds over the same days adds that context: a gain everyone in your risk band captured is the market, not skill. That comparison needs a verified cross-custodial dataset of real portfolios rather than a price feed, which is why far fewer tools offer it.

Which tools run this calculation

Most do not. Sharesight, Empower and Morningstar Investor benchmark against an index or a chosen fund. Koyfin produces the institutional Brinson decomposition, which attributes to sectors and holdings rather than to your individual decisions, and it sits on advisor plans. Pure Benchmarks, our own product, runs the buy-and-hold counterfactual on each change across linked brokerages on a free account, and does not produce the Brinson decomposition. The table below scores all of them on the same list.

How this comparison works

Which of these tools attributes a result to the decisions you actually made, and which ones attribute it to sectors, to holdings, or to nothing at all?

Decision journals and attribution tools are both marketed as decision tracking and they are not the same thing. A journal records your reasoning before the trade. Attribution measures the outcome afterwards. This page compares attribution tools and marks the journal capability as its own row.
The second question is who is allowed to buy it. Several of the strongest attribution engines in this category are sold to advisors or to institutions, and the attribution module specifically sits above a retail price point.
The third question is what the result is measured against. Every tool here can measure against an index. Only one measures against other real portfolios as well.
Capabilities and prices were read from each vendor's own published pages on the date shown. Vendors change both.
Pure Benchmarks is our own product. It does not produce a Brinson decomposition and it has no journal, and both gaps are marked in the table rather than described around.
FactSet, Bloomberg PORT, Confluence StatPro and Zephyr also serve this category and are institutional products sold through direct sales; they are outside the scope of a page about tools an individual can actually buy.

The comparison

Capabilities verified against each vendor's published pages on September 17, 2026.

Capability	Pure Benchmarks	Koyfin	MSCI (Barra)	IBviz	Morningstar Investor	Sharesight
Decision attribution	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Allocation vs selection	No	Yes	Yes	Partly	Partly	Partly
Your real portfolio	Yes	Partly	Partly	Yes	Partly	Yes
Self-serve retail	Yes	Partly	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Any broker	Yes	Partly	Partly	No	Partly	Yes
Peer baseline	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Advisor review	Yes	Partly	No	No	No	No
Decision journal	No	No	No	No	No	No
Free real output	Yes	No	No	Partly	No	Partly
Price	Free account	Free plan, attribution from $209 per month	Enterprise, price on request	Free tier, Pro at $15 per month	Subscription, free trial	Free plan up to 10 holdings, paid plans above that

✓ yes · ~ partly · ✗ no

What each capability means

Attributes results to the individual changes you made, not only to holdings or sectors

Classic attribution answers which holding or sector drove the return. Decision attribution answers a narrower and more uncomfortable question: did your trading decisions beat doing nothing? It is a buy-and-hold counterfactual — the tool freezes the portfolio as it stood before the change, runs that do-nothing portfolio forward alongside the real one, and reports the dollar difference. Those are different calculations and most tools only do the first.

Produces the classic allocation, selection and interaction decomposition

The institutional standard, usually called Brinson attribution. It separates the return you earned by weighting a group differently from the benchmark from the return you earned by picking better holdings inside that group.

Runs on your own linked accounts rather than a model or a manually built portfolio

Attribution on a hypothetical portfolio is an exercise. Attribution on the account you actually own, with the trades you actually placed, is a review.

An individual can sign up and use it without an advisor licence or an institutional contract

Much of this category is sold to advisors and asset managers. If attribution sits behind an advisor tier or a sales call, it is not available to the person whose money it is.

Works across brokerages instead of being tied to one

A tool locked to a single broker can only attribute the part of your money that sits there, which for most people is not the whole picture.

Compares the outcome against other real investors, not only against an index

An index is one baseline. What comparable investors did with the same market over the same days is a second one, and it is the one that tells you whether the decision was unusual or ordinary.

Can be used to review decisions somebody else made on your behalf

If an advisor or a managed account is making the changes, attribution is the only way to see whether those changes earned their fee.

Records your reasoning before the decision, as a journal

Journalling captures intent in advance; attribution measures outcome afterwards. They are routinely confused because both are called decision tracking, and almost no tool does both well.

Free tier produces real attribution output rather than a trial countdown

Several tools here have a free plan where attribution specifically is the thing the free plan does not include.

Every tool in detail

Pure Benchmarks

A buy-and-hold counterfactual for every change you made: each decision is scored against the do-nothing portfolio you would still hold if you had left it alone.

Best for: Individual investors reviewing their own decisions, or an advisor's, without an advisor-tier subscription.

Pricing: A free account produces the decision report on a linked portfolio. Attribution is not held back for a paid tier.

Strengths

Freezes the portfolio as it stood immediately before each change and runs that buy-and-hold version forward alongside the real one, so every trading decision carries its own dollar figure against doing nothing
Adds a second baseline beyond the index: verified connected portfolios in the same standardized risk category
Applies identically to changes an advisor or workplace plan made on your behalf
Read-only by design and unable to move money in any linked account

Limitations

Does not produce the classic Brinson allocation, selection and interaction decomposition; the unit of analysis is the decision rather than the sector weight
No decision journal. It measures what a change did, not what you expected it to do
Requires a read-only brokerage connection; there is no manual-entry-only portfolio
Does not track real estate, private holdings or self-custody crypto wallets

Koyfin

The most complete Brinson attribution available outside an institutional contract, sold on advisor plans.

Best for: Advisors, and individuals willing to pay an advisor price, who want allocation and selection effects done properly.

Pricing: Free, Plus at $39 per month and Premium at $79 per month exist, but Model Portfolios and Client Portfolios, which is where Attribution lives, start at Advisor Core at $209 per month and Advisor Pro at $299 per month.

Strengths

Separates performance against the benchmark into allocation, selection and interaction effects
Factors in every rebalance during the period, using the portfolio's weights throughout rather than only the weights at the end
Any equity ETF can be the benchmark, and it uses that ETF's historical constituents rather than only its current holdings

Limitations

Attribution sits on the advisor tiers, so the entry price for the feature is $209 per month
Attributes to groups and holdings, not to the individual changes you chose to make
Custodian integration is an advisor-plan feature, so an individual is often working from a model portfolio rather than a live linked account

MSCI (Barra)

The institutional reference implementation, and not purchasable by an individual.

Best for: Asset managers, asset owners and performance teams.

Pricing: No published price and no self-serve signup. The published route is "Request a demo" or "Get in touch".

Strengths

Brinson, fixed income, factor-based and multi-portfolio attribution models in one system
Proprietary framework for detailed curve and spread attribution on fixed income
The methodology much of the rest of the category is measured against

Limitations

Sold to "asset managers, asset owners and performance teams", not to individuals
No published price and no self-serve access point
Attribution is to factors and groups, not to the decisions a private investor made

IBviz

Deep attribution visualizations at a retail price, for one broker only.

Best for: Interactive Brokers clients who want contribution and risk analytics without an advisor subscription.

Pricing: Lite is free with 80+ visualizations on a 6-month lookback. Pro is $15 per month for the full analytics and extended lookback. Corporate is $350 per month.

Strengths

Shows which assets drove returns, the FX impact on profit and loss, and risk concentration
A genuinely free tier with the full visualization set on a six-month lookback
The cheapest real attribution on this page by a wide margin

Limitations

Interactive Brokers accounts only, so anything held elsewhere is invisible to it
Attributes to assets and asset classes rather than to the decisions you made
No comparison against other investors at all

Morningstar Investor

Holdings analysis rather than attribution, and the most widely recognised name a retail investor will meet first.

Best for: Fund-heavy investors who want overlap, style and fee analysis against a chosen benchmark.

Pricing: Sold as a subscription with a free trial. No price is published on the product page, so none is stated here.

Strengths

Portfolio X-Ray breaks down allocation, sector weightings, style and fees across funds and stocks together
Benchmarks can be chosen across a range from aggressive to conservative, and indexes added for comparison
Backed by Morningstar's own fund research and ratings

Limitations

Analyzes what you hold rather than what your changes did
No decomposition of a result into the decisions that produced it
A trial rather than a free tier

Sharesight

The strongest record of what happened, which is the input attribution needs, rather than attribution itself.

Best for: Investors who want accurate multi-broker performance, dividend and tax records with a benchmark attached.

Pricing: A free plan tracks up to 10 holdings with no credit card. Benchmarking is listed on the Starter plan and above.

Strengths

Separates capital gains, dividends and currency movement, which is the decomposition most retail tools skip
Benchmarks against any of more than 750,000 supported stocks, ETFs and funds
Excellent multi-broker and multi-currency record keeping

Limitations

Contribution and benchmark comparison rather than attribution to decisions
Benchmarking sits on the paid plans
No comparison against other investors

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Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my trading beat buy and hold?

Reconstruct the portfolio as it stood immediately before each change, run it forward on real end-of-day prices to today without applying any of your trades, and compare that value against your actual portfolio over the same window. The difference is what the trading was worth. Both sides must handle cash and any deposits or withdrawals identically, or the comparison is meaningless.

What is a do-nothing portfolio?

The portfolio you would still own if you had made no changes from a chosen starting point. It holds the original positions and quantities, receives the same dividends, and is priced on the same days as your real portfolio. It is the control group for your own decisions, and it is the baseline a buy-and-hold counterfactual measures against.

Is this the same as performance attribution?

Related but narrower. Classic performance attribution, usually Brinson, splits your return against a benchmark into an allocation effect and a selection effect, attributing results to groups of holdings. A buy-and-hold counterfactual attributes results to each action you took, measured against not taking it. Most attribution tools do the first; very few do the second.

Can Sharesight tell me if my trades beat holding?

Not directly. Sharesight is strong on record keeping, dividend tracking and tax reporting, and it benchmarks a portfolio against any fund or ETF you choose. That compares you to an outside investment rather than to the version of your own portfolio where you made no trades, so it answers the index question rather than the do-nothing question.

Does this work if an advisor makes my trades?

Yes, and it is arguably more useful there, because the decisions are not yours. The same calculation applies: freeze the portfolio before each change the advisor made and run it forward. The gap, net of the fee, is what the advice was worth over doing nothing.

How far back can this be measured?

Only as far back as reliable holdings history exists. Reconstructing a do-nothing portfolio requires knowing the exact positions before a change, so a tool can only measure decisions it has holdings data for. Any tool claiming to score decisions from before it had access to your holdings is inferring rather than measuring.

Keep exploring

See how a specific firm's advisor decisions compare to other firms:

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.