Components of Return. Now investment returns can be measured in many different ways because returns are multi-dimensional, and probably the most comprehensive measure of return is known as total return. And total return captures the different sources of return, first being income, which is cash dividend to an investor or interest payments to an investor. But it also includes capital appreciation, which is an increase in value of the asset or security. Now of course, capital movement can go both ways where you can see both an increase or decrease in the value of a security, creating either a capital gain or a capital loss. Now total return is also referred to as holding period return in many cases. And for investments, holding period return refers to the total return earned from an investment or an investment portfolio over a holding period. That is a period for which the asset or portfolio was held by that investor. So it can be one day, one month, one year, five years, so on. And again, it incorporates both the income and the capital appreciation or loss in the investment. Now here's your typical formula for a holding period return, and it's simply the price at the end of the period minus the price at the beginning of the period, when the investor first bought the security, plus any income that the investor received along the way. And again, that's interest or dividends. And we divide all of that by the price at the beginning. And the result is a gain or loss on the investment in percentage terms. And this formula is not an annualized number but sometimes you will see it annualized, which would mean that the return for a specific holding period may be converted to an annualized return, usually based upon compounding at that holding period rate that we just calculated.