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Why doesn't the performance of a category match the funds it's made of?

Understand the difference between the performance of a single fund and that of the full category it belongs to.

Laurène Soubrier avatar
Written by Laurène Soubrier
Updated over 2 weeks ago

In your portfolio, you can see:

  • the performance of an investment category (e.g. “International Companies”), and

  • the current performance of the individual funds that make up that category.

Sometimes, it might seem confusing. For example, the category shows –2%, but both funds inside it show +5%. Is that a bug?

☝️ No, that's entirely possible! Here's why.

Why is there a difference?

This is because:

  1. A category can include several funds over time.
    Selma may replace or rebalance certain products within a category as time goes by. Funds that were replaced are still included in the category performance, but not shown individually anymore.

  2. The performance of a category reflects the full history of all the funds that were ever included in it, even if they're no longer visible.
    In other words, the calculation includes how older products performed while they were part of the category.

  3. The individual performances shown only reflect the funds that are currently in your portfolio.
    They don't include the historical impact of past funds, even if those had a strong (positive or negative) performance.

A real-life example

For a given category:

  • 2022–2023: Fund A → –15% (no longer in your portfolio)

  • 2024–2025: Fund B & C → each +5%

Result:

  • Visible funds today: +5% each

  • Category performance (incl. past loss from Fund A): –5%

In short

  • The category performance shows the full investment journey since your portfolio started, including past funds and shares that have been sold.

  • The visible funds show only their own performance over a shorter period.

So it's totally normal to see a difference between the two. ✅


📘 Want to dig deeper? Check out our article on how Selma calculates returns.

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