Portfolio value chart should include cash

On the website platform the portfolio page has a panel at the top that the current value, book value and return on the portfolio and a graph with selectable timescale. However, the graph can be highly misleading because it doesn’t include cash so if there were times when the cash balance increased (or decreased) the graph can look volatile or poor whereas the opposite might be true (you may have cashed profits and waiting for a good time to re-invest).

I think a good solution would be to have a shaded area on top of the “portfolio value” line that shows cash and thus the top of that shaded zone would be the total account value (cash + investments).

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On the top bar the account value is shown. This is portfolio plus money in your account. Free funds aren’t in your portfolio, because they aren’t invested in anything.

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I know that the total account value is displayed at the top of the screen but that misses my point that the graph of portfolio value can be highly volatile and misleading in terms of performance. If you look at an investment fund then cash reserves class as part of their assets and value. I am just saying that in my opinion the chart would be much more helpful if it included a line for portfolio value (ie the current line) and a line or band/area showing portfolio + cash

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This would make sense for me. For me cash in my account is in my portfolio. Not having it invested in something is an active asset allocation decision.

The graph as it is is not at all useful to me.

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