When we invest in stocks, knowing the profit and loss for each individual stock alone is not enough. We have to know our annual portfolio returns so that we will know whether we have beaten inflation, we are on track to our financial goals and if we have beaten the market. If we have not beaten the market, it will be better off  buying the market itself by investing in exchange traded funds (ETFs). So how do we calculate our annualised portfolio returns when we have cash flow coming in and going out at random time periods? One of the ways to do that is to use internal rate of return, XIRR. Calculating XIRR is actually very straightforward. When I was reading up on it, it sounded complicated but to the contrary, it ...