Annual return is simply what you get back from your investment each year. It's the whole enchilada of what your investment makes you (or costs you), including capital gains or losses and interest or dividends.
You owned Smooshem Ketchup Company last year on January 1. The stock traded at $50 a share. By the next New Year's Eve, the stock was trading for $55. But it also paid $2 in dividends through the year. Its annual return, in simple terms (i.e., not worrying about the time value of dividends paid at different times of the year) was $7 total from a base of $50 or 7 / 50 = 14%.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is Compounding Value or Co...1771 Views
Finance allah shmoop What is calm Pounding value or compounding
interest Ah the power of compounding it makes tree's stronger
pollution More feral and the rich Well richer How so
Well let's start with compounds kissing cousin with six toes
Arithmetic calm pounding Right So the first was really geometric
compounding Now we're talking about arithmetic compounding If you invest
a thousand bucks in a ten year bond that pay
six percent a year in interest the dough comes back
to you in a pattern that looks like this Like
every six months they pay thirty bucks and it's sixty
dollars a year Got it nice You get the total
of sixteen hundred bucks back from your investment And the
cash that came back to you you know came in
small parts all along the way until you got about
two thirds of it or sixty percent at the end
right If you just spent that money and collected your
thousand bucks at the end That's it Okay So that's
arithmetic compounding the money comes to you You don't reinvest
it Ding ding ding that's the key here and you
just go buy burgers Okay So now let's look at
what six percent compound id looks like over the same
ten year period Wealth at the end of your one
it's a thousand sixty bucks and no we're only going
to compound it annually We probably should do the semi
annually but we confuse you even more is we won't
do that but then you essentially re invest that money
and you get another six percent compounded on that thousand
sixty instead of six percent compounded against the original thousand
so by the end of your two you'll have a
thousand one hundred twenty three sixty and by the end
of your ten you'll have one thousand seven hundred ninety
dollars and eighty five cents So why do you make
so much more money when you compound interest versus getting
thirty bucks twice a year like you would in this
bond example going by and burgers with it You don't
wanna do that well essentially what's happening is that you're
delaying your gratification of getting that sweet sweet cash or
getting liquid Whatever you wanna call it by reinvesting your
gains year after year after year So do you have
that sort of self control Do you need the cash
Yeah that's The question If you for example have trouble
making it home from your local pizza spot with the
pie intact well and compound interest Keeping the discipline to
not spend the money today and wait for the happiness
tomorrow Well when that may not be for you Sorry
Up Next
When you buy and sell something for investment purposes, whether it be a stock, artwork, gemstones, a bond, a condominium, you know that once you h...
WACC is an acronym for weighted average cost of capital. A company can raise money either through selling equity or by raising debt. When measuring...
There’s an old saying on Wall Street: People who want to make a lot of money buy stocks. People who have a lot of money buy bonds. The amount of...
What is real return? Real return is the actual return made from an investment after inflation is factored in. Return is expressed as a percentage c...