Topics: Investing

Investing

To invest is to allocate money (or sometimes another resource, such as time) in the expectation of some benefit in the future.

In finance, the benefit from investment is called a return. The return may consist of capital gain or investment income, including dividends, interest, rental income etc., or a combination of the two. The projected economic return is the appropriately discounted value of the future returns. The historic return comprises the actual capital gain (or loss) or income (or both) over a period of time.