Year to Date (YTD). MarketCheese

Year to date (YTD) is the time interval between the first day of a calendar year (or a fiscal year) and the current date required to calculate the return on a security or a company's earnings at a given point in time. Year to date data is needed to analyze a company's business processes over time, as well as to compare performance metrics with competitors in the same industry.

More about Year to Date

When YTD is applied to refer to a calendar year, the specific time frame between January 1st of the current year and today's date is taken into account. When year to date is applied to refer to a fiscal year, this means the time interval between the 1st day of the fiscal year and the present date.

The fiscal year is considered to be a period of one year, however, its beginning does not have to coincide with the start of the calendar year. This time interval is used by the government and various companies for taxing and accounting purposes. As a rule, the financial year for nonprofit organizations begins on July 01 and ends on June 30, and while 46 of the 50 states start it and end on similar dates, the federal government's fiscal year is set from October 1 to September 30.

Analysis of information on financial indicators taken from the beginning of the year, that is according to the YTD method, is necessary for the company since it allows making an interim assessment of the financial condition and taking prompt action, if required, without waiting for the end of the fiscal year.

Year-to-date financial statements are constantly compared with year-to-date financial statements for the previous similar period of time. In this way, for the purpose of identifying seasonal patterns or anomalies, the September year-to-date financial report for the present year is subject to comparison with the September year-to-date financial reports for the previous years.

How to calculate Year to Date

There are several ways to calculate the YTD:

Year to date returns. YTD returns data are used by investors and financial analysts in order to evaluate the effectiveness of investments and review the structure of the investment portfolios. To figure out the year-to-date return on investment (ROI), an investor needs to subtract the value of its first day in the current year from the value at the moment. After that, the investor should divide the obtained result by the cost of the first day, and then multiply by 100, so that the result is displayed as a percentage.

Assume that the value of the hypothetical portfolio at the beginning of the year was 10,000 US dollars. At the moment, it costs 12,000 USD, which means that its year to date return is 20%.

Another example, a certain investor purchased a certain share on the first day of the calendar year for $100 per share. As of April 1, the price of these shares was $115. YTD return is calculated in the following way: (($115-$100)/$100)*100=15%

A similar process is used for the portfolio as a whole. The price of each share is added up and compared with the prices at the beginning of the year. Thus, if at the beginning of the year an individual invested $15,000 in 10 securities, and on April 1, the value of that portfolio is now $25,000, then the year to date return of the ten securities would be $10,000.

Year to date earnings. Year to date earnings is the amount of funds earned by a person from the 1st of January to the present. This sum can be found on an individual's pay stub with other types of deductions such as Medicare, Social Security and income tax payments. Year-to-date earnings may refer to the cash that the company has earned since the beginning of the year, and this amount is equal to revenue minus expenses. This indicator will be helpful for the company's management in order to properly assess quarterly tax payments in case the company is not very large.

Year to date net pay. Net pay is the employee's earnings minus various deductions. In order to calculate this figure, the tax, along with other deductions, are subtracted from gross earnings. In most cases, the paycheck stub contains information about the net pay from the beginning of the year. This amount is the designation for all funds earned since the first calendar day of the current year, minus various tax and other deductions.