Talk:Rate of return/Archives/2013

Merge Rate of return on investment into this article ?
I suggest you merge Rate of Return with Rate of Return on Investment. The only caveat I can think of is that some contemporary investments use "return" to indicate compound/reinvestment "rate of return." I guess the FDIC keeps the banks honest regarding the difference between capital and return-on-capital, but the SEC can always say, "Didn't you read the fine-print footnote on page 14?" 65.78.214.71 02:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

agree, but what about the size of the page, it is getting even bigger this way--Afa86 02:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I saw the remark that Rate of return on investment needs to be merged into this article. I think the information in Rate of return on investment is not very accurate and too verbose. I have added a link to the Mathematics of Interest rate setion of the Compount interest page and I think this does the merge. It is just one extra line but it still covers Rate of return on investment completely. The only thing that still needs to happen is deleting the page Rate of return on investment. Ruerd 08:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

The Rate of return on investment article doesn't seem to address a general audience by starting with the basics then moving into more esoteric/technical stuff. Don't know if the technical stuff is accurate. If it should be merged, who does it? SueHay 01:14, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

This suggested merger seems to have been done now.

Jonathan G. G. Lewis 09:18, 18 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonazo (talk • contribs)

Annualized return - this section is over-simplified and not accurate
The section on annualized return is inaccurate. By simply multiplying or dividing the return (or the return period) by a factor which is proportional to the one year period, the model described fails to account for compounding. Now, I actually don't know the right formula for converting the return of an arbitrary period of time into an annualized return, but I hope somebody does, because the way it's described now is only accurate if there's no compounding at all, and in fact it's not even accurate for the little-used (in the real world) case of "simple interest". Beanluc (talk) 17:12, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I hope that my rewrite to-date of the work of previous contributors has answered this complaint.


 * Jonathan G. G. Lewis 07:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonazo (talk • contribs)

rate of profit
I'd like others opinion, but to me "rate of profit" is a totally different area. In finance, Return has to do with holding period or market returns. In accounting they may have to do with 'profit', but not in the finance disciple.

Cheers, Mark

Mark ok7 (talk) 01:53, 8 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Whether the word profit may be used in the context of rate of return depends on how broadly you apply it, thereby risking offence to specialists in either accounting or mathematical finance, but the Oxford dictionary has no qualms using profit to define return. There does not seem to be a safer word with any less accounting semantic baggage.


 * Jonathan G. G. Lewis 07:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonazo (talk • contribs)

Rate of return (ROR) and Return on Investments (ROI)
Are they same? I come from a different background so am wondering how? Ganesh J. Acharya (talk) 08:21, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * The term return on investment seems to have had a more specific accounting origin . Accountants make reference to ratios which use the return as the numerator with things other than investment as the denominator. Nevertheless, some may consider it redundant to emphasise that we are referring to the ratio of return and investment - a bit of a pleonasm.


 * Secondly, rate of return seems to be generally reserved for the return per monetary unit of investment and per period of time, so it is a rate, or ratio, in two senses. The term return on investment does not make this explicit, even if sometimes the result is annual.


 * Jonathan G. G. Lewis 06:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Annual returns and annualized returns - Example is probably wrong.
At the end of this section there is a simple example of a four year investment with profit of 265$. It is suggested that the annualized return is (1265/1000)/4 = 6.625%. But according to previous section: Geometric average rate of return. The annualized return is a geometric mean, hence should be (1265/1000)^(1/4) - 1 = 6.05%

I am not sure of this analysis, so I don't change the text, but if you are - please change! --Yuvalaviel (talk) 13:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Totally agree. The example uses "Compound Yield" which is not defined anywhere, is afaik non-standard & (as pointed out above) not really meaningful.
 * Unless someone objects, I plan to come back top this page & remove all references to "Compound Yield" & replace with Arithmetic average rate of return + geometric.
 * Going, going, gone...
 * Going, going, gone...
 * Going, going, gone...

--Tony999 (talk) 05:52, 8 August 2012 (UTC)


 * @Tony999, I totally agree with you. We should definitely remove any references to compound yield. I have never heard of this term, and it was not defined any where in the article. I also suggest removing the two example tables, since they are using compound yield calculation and no text content was referring to these tables.Zsljulius (talk) 19:25, 18 October 2013 (UTC)


 * The example I think being referred to (which wasn't my work, by the way) appears to assume no reinvestment. I have left it in, and repaired it, but making that point explicit.


 * Jonathan G. G. Lewis 09:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonazo (talk • contribs)