Total return vs price return

Price return only counts capital gains — the change in the share price from one date to another. If a stock goes from $100 to $110, the price return is +10%, regardless of any dividends paid in between.

Total return includes both capital gains and reinvested dividends. It assumes every dividend was used to buy more shares of the same security on the day it was paid (the ex-dividend date). Total return is always greater than or equal to price return for any dividend-paying security.

For non-dividend-paying stocks like Tesla or Amazon, the two are identical. For dividend ETFs like SCHD, JEPI, or VYM, the gap can be enormous — often the majority of long-term return comes from reinvested dividends, not price appreciation.

NAV erosion is when a fund's price falls over time even as it pays dividends. The fund still distributes income, but those distributions come partly from selling underlying assets or returning your own capital — not from earnings. Your share price drops to fund the dividend.

This is a common warning sign with extreme high-yield funds: covered call ETFs that aggressively sell calls, mortgage REITs (mREITs) like AGNC or NLY, and certain leveraged income ETFs. A juicy 12% yield is misleading if the share price drops 8% per year — your real return is closer to 4%.

The Dividend Lab's NAV erosion column flags this automatically. If the price-only return over the displayed window is significantly negative, you'll see a red "Eroding" badge.

The Dividend Lab calculates an implied annualized dividend yield from the gap between total return and price return over the displayed period. Specifically: yield = ((1 + total_return) / (1 + price_return))^(1/years) − 1.

This is similar to a fund's "trailing 12-month yield" or "SEC yield" but is computed live from the period you're viewing. The yield published on a fund sponsor's website may differ slightly because of methodology differences, but should be in the same neighborhood for any reasonably long period.

Div yield is a rate — annualized percent. It tells you how much the security pays per year as a fraction of price. Compare it to a bond yield or a savings rate. SCHD's yield is ~3.5% no matter what time period you look at.

Div ribbon is a cumulative total — the sum of all dividend contributions over the displayed window, expressed as a percent of the starting value. SCHD held for 5 years might show a ~21% div ribbon (3.5% per year compounded over 5 years, plus dividend growth).

The yield tells you what to expect going forward. The ribbon shows what actually happened.

Dividends compound. Each dividend payment buys more shares, which then pay more dividends. Over short periods (3 months, 6 months) the ribbon is barely visible — there's only been one or two dividend payments. Over 10 years, the cumulative impact of reinvested dividends can rival or exceed the capital gains.

This is also why dividend funds look bad on most charts. Standard price charts hide the dividend story entirely. The Dividend Lab makes it visible.

All three are dividend-focused ETFs from major sponsors, but their selection methods differ:

• SCHD (Schwab US Dividend Equity ETF) — tracks the Dow Jones US Dividend 100 Index. Quality screen plus 10+ years of consecutive dividend payments. Yield ~3.5%.
• VYM (Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF) — broader, simpler. Holds the highest-yielding half of US stocks. Yield ~3.0%, more diversification but lower quality screen.
• DGRO (iShares Core Dividend Growth ETF) — focuses on dividend growth over yield. Requires 5+ years of growing dividends. Yield ~2.5% but historically faster dividend growth.

Use The Dividend Lab to compare them directly — drop all three in and switch between 5Y and 10Y to see how they've actually performed.

JEPI (JPMorgan Equity Premium Income) and JEPQ (its Nasdaq-focused sibling) are covered call ETFs. They generate high monthly distributions (often 7-10% yield) by selling call options on their holdings. The trade-off: they cap their upside in strong bull markets.

For income-focused investors in or near retirement, they can be useful as part of a diversified income strategy. For long-term wealth accumulation in a taxable account, they're often a poor fit because:

• Distributions are taxed as ordinary income, not qualified dividends
• Capped upside leads to lower long-term total return than the index in strong markets
• They underperform during sustained bull runs

Compare JEPI, JEPQ, and SPY/QQQ side by side over 3-5 years in The Dividend Lab. The dividend ribbon will be wide, but the total return line often falls behind the unhedged index.

The monthly income column shows what dividend payments would look like for the dollar amount you specify, with two calculation modes:

• Forward (default) — current implied yield × your investment, divided by 12 (or 52 for weekly). Tells you what to expect going forward.
• Historical — total dividends actually paid during the displayed window, averaged across the months in that window. Tells you what you'd have actually received during that period.

For a 1-year chart, both modes give nearly identical numbers. For longer ranges, the forward estimate uses today's yield while the historical mode reflects older yields, which may have been very different.

All historical price and total return data comes from Yahoo Finance's public chart API. The Dividend Lab fetches the adjusted close (which already factors in dividends and splits) and the unadjusted close, then computes the difference between them as the dividend contribution.

Yahoo's data is end-of-day quality and good for ETFs and US-listed stocks. For very small or international tickers, data may be missing or sparse. The site falls back to illustrative simulated data only when Yahoo's API can't be reached from your browser.

No. The Dividend Lab is a research and visualization tool, not financial advice. The information shown is for educational purposes only. Past performance does not predict future results. Dividend yields, NAV erosion patterns, and total returns can change abruptly.

Before making any investment decision, consult a licensed financial advisor and review the official prospectus and recent filings of any security you're considering.