---
title: "Reading the monthly returns heatmap"
description: "The monthly returns heatmap shows each month's return by year with Total, DD and NP/DD columns; this guide reads the grid, a year's detail and the toggles."
canonical_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/reading-the-monthly-returns-heatmap"
last_updated: "2026-10-07"
md_url: "https://fincanva.com/docs/analysis/reading-the-monthly-returns-heatmap.md"
---

# Reading the monthly returns heatmap

The **Monthly Returns** tab lays your [strategy](/glossary/strategy)'s return for every month in a grid, one row per year, with each year's **Total**, **DD** and **NP/DD** on the right.

↗ See this in Fincanva — a strategy's Analysis, under Monthly Returns

## Steps

1. **Open Monthly Returns.** Open your strategy, go to **Analysis** and select **Monthly Returns**. The grid, titled **Monthly returns**, fills in once the strategy has a completed [backtest](/glossary/backtest); four figures above it — **Avg month**, **Best month**, **Worst month** and **Positive months** — cover the whole period.
2. **Read a year across, or a month down.** Each row is a **Year** and each cell that month's return, printed in the cell and shaded green or red by its size; the newest year is on top. Select a column heading to sort the years by it — what the shading means is on [months matrix](/glossary/months-matrix).
3. **Select a year.** Click its row or the year itself: the three panels above the grid — **Equity**, **Drawdown** and **Monthly returns** — show that year alone. The most recent year is selected when the page opens.
4. **Compare with the benchmark.** Switch on **vs. Benchmark** to turn the month cells and **Total** into your return minus the [benchmark](/glossary/benchmark)'s, in percentage points ([excess return](/glossary/excess-return)); **DD** and **NP/DD** stay the strategy's own.
5. **Set what the figures include.** Switch **Costs & interests**, **Taxes** or **Reinvest profits** in **Simulation assumptions**.

**Done.** You can read when the result happened — which months carried a year and which gave it back — against the benchmark when you want it.

## What do the Total, DD, and NP/DD columns mean?

Three columns on the right summarise each year.

- **Total** is the [total return](/glossary/total-return) for the year.
- **DD** is that year's maximum [drawdown](/glossary/max-drawdown).
- **NP/DD** is net profit divided by maximum drawdown. It is a plain, public ratio, the same figure the [metrics table](/glossary/metrics-table) calls the return-to-drawdown ratio. See [return-to-drawdown ratio](/glossary/return-to-drawdown-ratio).

## How do the Costs, Taxes, and Reinvest toggles change the numbers?

Three toggles under **Simulation assumptions** — **Costs & interests**, **Taxes**, and **Reinvest profits** — decide what the figures include. By default **Costs & interests** is off, **Taxes** is off, and **Reinvest profits** is on. Turning one on or off switches the whole page to a version Fincanva pre-computed when the backtest ran; the page reads the matching set of results rather than recalculating on the spot, so the change is immediate. The current-state view of live holdings ignores these toggles — it always shows reinvested figures with costs and taxes off.

## Why is the heatmap empty?

The grid needs a completed backtest with monthly results, and with none it reads "No monthly data for this run." Run the strategy first; a strategy that has never been simulated has no monthly series to plot.

Fincanva is for education and illustration only. It is not personalised financial advice, and past or simulated results do not predict future ones. [Read the Terms Addendum](https://fincanva.com/terms/addendum#section-3)