Return

The change in the value of a portfolio over an evaluation period, including any distributions made from the portfolio during that period.

Rate of Return

In securities, the amount of revenue an investment generates over a given period of time as a percentage of the amount of capital invested. The rate of return shows the amount of time it will take to recover one's investment. For example, if one invests $1,000 and receives $150 in the first year of the investment, the rate of return is 15%, and the investor will recover his/her initial $1,000 in six years and eight months. Different investors have different required rates of return at different levels of risk.

return

See yield.

Wall Street Words: An A to Z Guide to Investment Terms for Today's Investor by David L. Scott. Copyright © 2003 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

Return.

Your return is the profit or loss you have on your investments, including income and change in value.

Return can be expressed as a percentage and is calculated by adding the income and the change in value and then dividing by the initial principal or investment amount. You can find the annualized return by dividing the percentage return by the number of years you have held the investment.

For example, if you bought a stock that paid no dividends at $25 a share and sold it for $30 a share, your return would be $5. If you bought on January 3, and sold it the following January 4, that would be a 20% annual percentage return, or the $5 return divided by your $25 investment.

But if you held the stock for five years before selling for $30 a share, your annualized return would be 4%, because the 20% gain is divided by five years rather than one year.

Percentage return and annual percentage return allow you to compare the return provided by different investments or investments you have held for different periods of time.

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References in classic literature

"No one knows except the Mahars and those who go to the pits with them, but as the latter never return, their knowledge does them but little good.

The guards in whose hands I now found myself, upon hearing that I had returned of my own volition to Phutra evidently felt that it would be safe to give me liberty within the building as had been the custom before I had escaped, and so I was told to return to whatever duty had been mine formerly.

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"We are men of his company and we have news for him," returned the speaker in the sampan.

The native on shore returned to the long-house without replying.

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'But let me represent to you,' returned Lightwood, 'speaking now with professional profundity, and not with individual imbecility, that the offer of such an immense reward is a temptation to forced suspicion, forced construction of circumstances, strained accusation, a whole tool-box of edged tools.'

'Your lawyer, Mr Boffin,' returned Lightwood, making a very short note of it with a very rusty pen, 'has the gratification of taking the instruction.

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'You do me a great deal of honour Haredale,' returned the other, most composedly, 'and I thank you.

'So resolved am I to hold this course,' returned the other, tasting his wine with great deliberation; 'that I have determined not to quarrel with you, and not to be betrayed into a warm expression or a hasty word.'

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'My dear fellow,' returned the other, 'what am I bound to suppose, when I find two married people living in harmony and happiness?'

'Yes, but she wouldn't have been as dutiful, and it would not have come off as easily,' returned the whelp, 'if it hadn't been for me.'

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'I tell you,' returned the other with an increased earnestness, which, whether it were real or assumed, had the same effect on his companion, 'that he lives for her, that his whole energies and thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favour again for any act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of.

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"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but--"

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