Anyone happen to have 1997-2003 historical annual returns for VFIAX?

VFIAX = the "Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral". I have a client for whom I'm calculating a marital portion of an old 401k containing that single investment. That 401k has undergone some mergers and recordkeeper changes such that historical statements for individuals are no longer available. The parties agreed to ballpark the present value of the premarital balance, and to estimate that premarital balance by working backward from a later balance by subtracting annual fund overall returns on that single investment. Whether or not this is the right/smart way to approach it is not the issue, finding the historical fund returns is. (I'm a lawyer rather than a math person, but I can run a spreadsheet with reasonable competence.) The annual returns sought on that VFIAX fund as a whole are for the years 1997-2003. I have been able to locate overall fund returns back to 2003, but not before that, and would be grateful if anyone happens to have those. Suggestions and criticisms are also welcome.

Are you certain about the exact fund—whether SEC-registered mutual funds or a trust company’s collective investment trust, and of the exact class of shares or units?

Vanguard states November 13, 2000 for VFIAX’s inception.

Consider that the plan’s investment alternative for at least some, and maybe much or all, of 1997-2003 might have been another fund or class of shares.

That a retirement plan’s statement for a period after 2003 shows a holding in VFIAX does not mean the plan had the same investment in earlier periods.

Given that the participant and the might-be alternate payee might agree on ways to approximate hypothetical returns, values, and amounts, might they tolerate another simplification? Instead of looking for any Vanguard fund’s returns, get the S&P 500 Index numbers, and assume the retirement plan’s investment alternative’s returns were, yearly, five basis points lower.

There are other ways to collect or use real information. But the expense might be disproportionate to whatever value your client might obtain by using a more careful estimate.

This is not advice to anyone.

Hi Peter, your comments are helpful, as always. I did suggest using the S&P returns for the same reason you cite, that the same plan investment array in earlier periods cannot be known with any certainty without documentation. The participant says they only ever had that one fund, and it does appear by that exact name on the earliest statement they have (2003). While Vanguard should know best what the inception date of any of their funds is, the participant said they had that investment as of 1997, never changed it until the first plan merger in 2005, and stockanalysis.com gives that fund's inception date as Aug 31, 1976 (See https://stockanalysis.com/quote/mutf/VFIAX/). I believe there are/were different flavors of the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, with the "Admiral" flavor being one variant. I like your idea of using a five basis points lower than S&P measure as a yardstick and will suggest that if they can't come to some agreement without all this fuss (which has been ongoing for over a year, sigh.) Thanks much!

I happen to have some of that fund in one of my IRAs.  My usual look at that fund is thru Yahoo Finance; just put in the ticker symbol.  That site says Inception Date is Sept. 10, 2010.  The historical data available at that site is 365 days of unit price, but also several years of rate of return, both annual and quarterly.

BTW, your method of producing a "ballpark" will fail (badly) if there have been any additions (EE and/or ER contributions) to that account in the intervening years.

Hi David, is yours the "Admiral" favor of the fund? The variants seem to have different inception dates.

The "ballpark" method is one the parties came up with (at the suggestion of their divorce lawyers), and that I advised against, but people will do what they will do.

In general, when early statements are unavailable for a marital property division but parties do know a beginning and ending balance, many of their lawyers will want to take that beginning, premarital separate property balance, factor in EE/ER contributions at some agreed static level for each (monthly or annual) period, add investment experience for each of those periods per a fund's published return, to arrive at something resembling PV, then subtract that PV separate property portion from the balance on the day the parties separated, to then arrive at a marital portion to be divided. It's the kludgy method for parties who cannot afford to hire an economist of some sort.

Good point.  Yes, my holdings are "Admiral" shares, but (now that you mention it) I'm unsure exactly what is showing up on the Yahoo website.  Time for research!