Is holding cash a mistake?

Not necessarily — a buffer you chose is a decision, and cash cushions a falling market. The point is knowing what it costs so the choice is deliberate rather than accidental.

Does this count money I was about to invest?

It counts whatever was actually sitting in the account. Miw cannot know your intent, which is exactly why it reports the figure rather than judging it.

Why do some accounts show no figure?

Because a percentage of a very small balance, or of a period with almost no invested history, is noise wearing a real number’s clothes. Miw stays silent rather than printing one.

IDLE CASH

What is uninvested cash costing you?

Money sitting in your brokerage account is part of your portfolio whether you meant it to be or not. It earns nothing while the market moves, and it quietly drags your headline return below what your actual picks did. Almost no tracker measures it.

Import your statementNo account needed. The file is read in your browser and stays there.

The number hiding inside your return

When your account returns 8% and your holdings returned 9%, the difference is the cash you were holding. That is not a rounding error — a steady 10% cash balance costs roughly a tenth of whatever the market gave you. It also cuts the other way: in a falling year the cash you held protected you, and the same measurement shows that too.

Why the gap is the interesting part

Neither figure alone tells you anything actionable. The account return is what happened to your money; the securities-only return is how your choices did. Seen together they answer a question you cannot otherwise ask: was the cash a decision, or just money you forgot to invest? Miw computes both legs over the same period and names the difference instead of hiding it inside one percentage.

What Miw shows you

Measured from your own statement — no assumptions about what the cash was for.

The share of your account that sat in cash, averaged over the period
Your account’s return, and your positions’ return, as two separate lines
The gap between them — what the cash cost, or saved you
Nothing at all when the period is too short for the figure to mean anything

Questions

Is holding cash a mistake?: Not necessarily — a buffer you chose is a decision, and cash cushions a falling market. The point is knowing what it costs so the choice is deliberate rather than accidental.
Does this count money I was about to invest?: It counts whatever was actually sitting in the account. Miw cannot know your intent, which is exactly why it reports the figure rather than judging it.
Why do some accounts show no figure?: Because a percentage of a very small balance, or of a period with almost no invested history, is noise wearing a real number’s clothes. Miw stays silent rather than printing one.

Descriptive, not advice. Computed from your uploaded statement, in your browser.

Start from your broker

The figures come from the statement your broker already gives you — nothing is typed in by hand.

Import your statement