# Financial Yield / Return

Key: `finance.rate.yield`

Financial return or yield notation with explicit sign and percentage. Common in Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, investment return reports. Distinct from percentage by requiring explicit +/- sign prefix.

Page: <https://meridian.online/docs/projects/finetype/types/finance/rate/yield>

Samples: `+2.5%`, `-1.2%`, `+0.75%`, `-3.25%`, `+10.0%`

## Background

### Origin

FineType defines finance.rate.yield itself, as financial return or yield notation with an explicit sign and a percentage.[[1]](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meridian-online/finetype/main/labels/definitions_finance.yaml) FineType's definition sets the type apart from a plain percentage by requiring an explicit +/- sign prefix.[[1]](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meridian-online/finetype/main/labels/definitions_finance.yaml) FineType's registry gives +2.5%, -1.2%, +0.75%, -3.25% and +10.0% as samples of the type.[[1]](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meridian-online/finetype/main/labels/definitions_finance.yaml) The type is a notation rather than a financial standard: it names the way a signed rate is written, not how the rate was calculated. (Meridian's view)

### Use

In finance, the yield on a security is a measure of the ex-ante return to a holder of the security.[[2]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_%28finance%29) A return may be measured either in absolute terms, such as dollars, or as a percentage of the amount invested.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return) A loss instead of a profit is described as a negative return, assuming the amount invested is greater than zero.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return) A leading plus sign is a useful hint that a column holds gains and losses rather than levels, but read the column's documentation before relying on it. (Meridian's view)

Python's format specification mini-language has a + sign option, which indicates that a sign should be used for both positive and negative numbers.[[4]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html) Python's % presentation type multiplies the number by 100 and displays it in fixed format, followed by a percent sign.[[4]](https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html) An Excel number format can have up to four sections of code, separated by semicolons, for positive numbers, negative numbers, zero values and text, in that order.[[5]](https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/excel/review-guidelines-for-customizing-a-number-format) Microsoft lists the plus sign among the characters an Excel number format displays without quotation marks.[[5]](https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/excel/review-guidelines-for-customizing-a-number-format) Microsoft's Excel guidance says that including the percent sign in a number format displays numbers as a percentage of 100, for example .08 as 8%.[[5]](https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/excel/review-guidelines-for-customizing-a-number-format)

A percentage point is the arithmetic difference between two percentages.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage_point) Wikipedia's percentage point article gives a move from 40 percent to 44 percent as an increase of 4 percentage points, and also as a 10-percent increase.[[6]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage_point) A signed figure in a table of rates may be a change in percentage points rather than a return, so check the header or the source's notes before adding it to anything. (Meridian's view)

When the period is a year, the rate of return is also called the annualized return.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return) Wikipedia's rate of return article cites the CFA Institute's GIPS standards as saying that returns for periods of less than one year must not be annualized.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return) A bare +10.0% says nothing about its period, so find out whether a column is annualised, cumulative or for a single month before comparing it with another. (Meridian's view)

## Sources

1. [definitions\_finance.yaml](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/meridian-online/finetype/main/labels/definitions_finance.yaml) — FineType
2. [Yield (finance)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_%28finance%29) — secondary source
3. [Rate of return](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_of_return) — secondary source
4. [string — Common string operations](https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html) — documentation
5. [Review guidelines for customizing a number format](https://support.microsoft.com/en-US/excel/review-guidelines-for-customizing-a-number-format) — documentation
6. [Percentage point](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percentage_point) — secondary source