Average Annual Growth Rate - AAGR

Average annual growth rate is a relatively simple way of describing a portfolio's growth over time. The calculation involves dividing the profit investments have shown by the number of years involved. It doesn't take into account fluctuations in growth over the years or the ways that complications, like compounding, have impacted the figures.
Stepping away from finance for a second, imagine an 18 year old with a 30 inch waist. Now imagine the same person, now 33, with a waist measurement of 45. The AAGR of the person's waistline is 1 inch per year. What the calculation doesn't know is that everything was fine until the divorce and the layoff, and that for the last years, it just seemed like no one cared except Krispy Kreme and McDonald's. (Don't worry; we're feeling much better now.)
Anyway, AAGR is something of a back-of-the-envelope measure. However, in the financial realm, it's popular in marketing materials for investment outlets, things like mutual funds and financial advisors.
Average Annual Growth Rate can be used to calculate the increase of value for an investment. It's done by finding the mean value in a series of growth measurements. So to calculate it, you would find the annual rate of return for the business, then compare that year to the one before it to find the percentage it changed (hopefully as an increase). You could do this as many times as you wished to determine if it's increasing or decreasing, and by what percentage, for any length of time.