Share two performance

You are receiving two types of return on your XYZ shares: income (dividend) and capital growth.

In our example, the dividend is paid on 10,000 shares at 80 cents per share, which is $8,000. In addition our XYZ shares value has decreased from $10 to $8.50.

So your total return can be calculated as follows:

Dividend received (10,000 x 0.80)         $8,000

Less capital loss ((10-8.5) x 10,000)    ($15,000)

                    Total return                  ($7,000)

The total return is negative $7,000 on your $100,000.

To express this as a percentage it is $7,000 divided by $100,000. The return for XYZ shares is a -7% (-0.07) loss for that year.