Cash flow analytics

Cash flows are the lifeblood of a portfolio, yet they are among the most overlooked dimensions of portfolio analysis. Dividends compound quietly over years. Transaction fees accumulate trade by trade, rarely large enough individually to draw attention but potentially significant in aggregate. Withholding taxes silently reduce the effective yield of foreign holdings. IBviz brings all of these flows into a single, structured view so that nothing stays hidden in the noise of daily price movements.

Why cash flow monitoring matters

A portfolio's total return has two components: price appreciation and cash flows received. Focusing exclusively on price movements gives an incomplete picture of how a strategy is actually performing. A high-dividend equity portfolio or a bond ladder may show modest price appreciation while delivering substantial income; evaluating it on price alone would severely understate its contribution. Conversely, a strategy with high trading activity may look strong on a gross basis while transaction fees quietly erode a meaningful share of the return.

Having cash flow data readily available, broken down by type, by position, and by period, also makes practical tasks much faster: verifying that an expected dividend was received, assessing the true yield of a holding net of withholding taxes, or reviewing the fee impact of a period of heightened trading activity. These are questions that matter but are time-consuming to answer from raw brokerage statements. IBviz puts the answers at the tip of your fingers.

Cash flow types monitored by IBviz

• Dividends: cash distributions paid by equity holdings, tracked per payment and accumulated over any selected period. IBviz records the ex-date, payment date, and amount for each dividend received.
• Interest income: coupon payments from bonds, money market income, and interest credited on cash balances. Shown separately from dividends so fixed income and equity income can be assessed independently.
• Withholding taxes: taxes deducted at source on dividends and interest paid by foreign issuers. These reduce the net income received and are tracked separately so you can compute the true after-tax yield of each holding and assess whether tax reclaim procedures are worthwhile.
• Transaction fees: brokerage commissions and exchange fees paid on each buy and sell. Individually small, these can become material over a large number of trades or a long holding period, and are an important input when assessing the true cost of an active strategy.
• Market data fees: subscription fees charged by IBKR for real-time market data, tracked as a portfolio-level cash outflow.
• Advisor fees: management or advisory fees charged by an advisor, recorded as a distinct cash flow category.
• Deposits and withdrawals: capital injections and redemptions, tracked over time. Visualizing deposit and withdrawal history alongside portfolio value makes it easy to distinguish investment-driven growth from growth attributable to fresh capital.

Available at portfolio, strategy, and asset level

IBviz makes cash flow analytics available at every level of the portfolio hierarchy.

At the portfolio level, all cash flows are aggregated across every position and period, giving a complete income and cost picture for the portfolio as a whole. You can filter by cash flow type and date range to answer questions such as: how much did I receive in dividends this year, or how much did I pay in transaction fees last quarter?

At the strategy level, cash flows are attributed to each sub-strategy, making it possible to compare the income profile and cost structure of different investment approaches within the same portfolio. A dividend income strategy and a momentum trading strategy will have very different cash flow signatures, and seeing them side by side clarifies the contribution of each to the overall portfolio's economics.

At the asset level, every cash flow is attributed to the specific position that generated it. This is where the detail is most granular and most actionable: you can see the full dividend history of a single stock, the cumulative fees paid on a frequently traded position, or the withholding taxes paid on a foreign bond. See also Asset-level insights.