If you hold a stock priced in another currency, it has two prices: what it cost you on the day you bought it, and what it is worth today. Both need an exchange rate, and they are not the same rate. Most trackers use today's rate for both, and the currency part of your result quietly disappears. Here is what that costs you, and how PortfolioTrackr does it now.
One holding, two exchange rates
Say you bought 100 shares of a London stock at 10 pounds each, so 1,000 pounds, on a day when one dollar bought 0.80 pounds. That cost you $1,250.00. Today the shares are 12 pounds, 1,200 pounds in all, and the pound has strengthened: one dollar now buys 0.70 pounds. Your shares are worth $1,714.29.
Your gain in dollars is $1,714.29 minus the $1,250.00 you actually paid: $464.29.
A tracker that converts the cost at today's rate says the shares cost you $1,428.57 (1,000 pounds at 0.70) and your gain is $285.71. The $178.57 it loses is the currency gain: the pounds you paid are worth more dollars today than on the day you paid them. The share price did one thing, the currency did another, and only one of the two is on the screen.
The same mistake runs the other way when a currency weakens. Then the tracker shows a gain that is partly gone, and you find out when you sell.
Why most trackers do it the easy way
Converting everything at today's rate needs one number per currency. Converting cost at the purchase-day rate needs the rate for every day you ever bought anything, in every currency you hold, kept for as long as you hold it. That is a database of daily rates, not a lookup. A spreadsheet has the same problem: unless you type the rate of the day into every row, the cost column is in today's money.
Some trackers do it properly. Sharesight converts at the rate of the trade date and shows a currency gain in its returns. Many others do not say how they convert cost at all, which usually means today's rate.
What PortfolioTrackr does
Every holding keeps the exchange rate of the day it was bought. Your cost is converted at that rate, your value at today's rate, and the gap between the two is shown as its own line, Currency exchange gain or Currency exchange loss, under your gain or loss on the summary card and on the P&L chart card. The gain or loss figure itself already includes it, so the headline is the true dollar result. Hover the line on the website and it explains itself.
Sold holdings use the rate of the sale day. Dividends use the rate of the pay date. A holding bought before we kept daily rates, where no rate for its day exists, is converted at today's rate and says so. The same rules run on the website and in the iPhone and Android apps.
Nothing changes for a portfolio held in one currency. If everything you own is in dollars, or everything is in pounds, there is no currency effect and the line does not appear.
The exchange rates behind it
PortfolioTrackr keeps 10 years of daily exchange rates for 100 currencies, all but two of them with the full span (two currencies were redenominated or pegged inside that period, and their history is shorter). Each day holds that day's close. A weekend or a holiday carries the last close forward. A second source checks the rates it covers, and a rate that moves by a decimal place for one day and comes back is thrown out rather than kept.
The profit and loss methodology page states the rule and reads the coverage numbers from the product itself, so when the coverage grows, that page changes with it.
What it means for your tax report
Tax offices want each trade converted at the rate of its own date, not at the rate of the day you file. The US guidance (IRS Publication 550) uses the spot rate on the date of the transaction. HMRC wants sterling at the time of each transaction. A report that converts a mixed-currency book at today's rate gives a different figure from the one your return needs.
PortfolioTrackr's capital gains report converts each leg of each sale at the rate of its own date and prints the rate on every row, in the table, the CSV and the PDF. A row we hold no rate for says "today's rate" next to it, and the report counts those rows for you. The methodology page explains the matching rule for each country. None of this is tax advice; a report is a starting point for you and your adviser, not a return.
Where to see it
On the dashboard, the summary card shows the currency line on the all-time period, and the P&L chart card shows it under Gain / loss. The capital gains report shows the rate used under cost and under proceeds on every converted row, and the CSV export carries the buy rate, the sell rate and the rate source as columns. Try it on the live demo, which holds a London, a Frankfurt and a Dubai stock beside the US ones.
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Frequently asked questions
Which exchange rate should a portfolio tracker use for a foreign stock?
Two rates, not one. The cost of the holding is converted at the exchange rate of the day it was bought, because that is what it cost. The value is converted at today's rate, because that is what it is worth. The difference between the cost at today's rate and the cost at the purchase-day rate is the currency gain or loss.
Does PortfolioTrackr use the exchange rate of the purchase day?
Yes. Since October 2026 every holding's cost is converted at the rate of the day it was bought, its value at today's rate, and the currency gain or loss is shown on its own line on the summary card and the P&L chart card, on the website and in the apps. The tax report converts each trade at the rate of its own date and shows the rate on every row.
How many currencies and how much history does PortfolioTrackr keep?
PortfolioTrackr keeps 10 years of daily exchange rates for 100 currencies, all but two of them with the full span. A weekend or a holiday carries the last close, and a second source checks the rates it covers.