yield

In general, the annual income from an investment as a percentage of the price at a particular point in time. Yield can have many meanings. A mutual fund’s yield is the per-share annual income distribution (including interest, dividends and net short-term gains) divided by its year-ending net asset value plus any capital gains distributions made during the year. A stock’s dividend yield is the indicated annual dividend (the expected dividend for the next four quarters) divided by the closing price of the stock. For bonds, you’ll see a current yield (annual interest payment divided by the current market price), a coupon yield (the simple interest paid annually as a percentage of maturity value) and yield to maturity (rate of return you could expect to receive if you held the bond to maturity and were able to reinvest all income).