What is the difference between yield and year to date return?

which is a more accurate measure for investment decisions?

If you are talking stocks, yield is the dividend or the profits that a company hands over directly to shareholders. It is usually expressed as a percentage of share price. Typically a large, well established company will have a yield of about 2% or sometimes much higher. Year to date return is the total return (usually expressed in percentage points) generated from a stock's dividend yield and its share appreciation. Both yield and year to date return can be misleading for investment decisions. However, they should be part of the decision making process.

Here is a good site for learning more about investing.

www.fool.com

Read as many articles on this site as pique your interest. You can never know enough when your money is on the line.

Good luck!

If it's a fixed income security, yield would be. Yield is what it should pay per period, usually per year. YTD return is what you've earned since January 1. Just make sure when comparing yields, that they're adjusted to be the same (5% compounded monthly>5% compounded annually).

Yield refers to the interest and dividend income earned. It is based on the income over a certain period (such as seven days or 30 days) and on the assumption that income will continue to be earned at the same rate. It is expressed as an annualized number, representing a full year's income.

Return, sometimes referred to as "total return," combines the interest and dividends paid and the change in SHARE PRICE to tell you what an investor's money actually earned during a specific period in the past.

Which is most important? Money-market funds have a fixed price of $1 per share, so what matters is the current yield. With bond funds, total return is more important.

Yield is the income from an investment; the interest or dividends. Return is the yield plus, or minus, capital gains (realized or unrealized)

Yield = Percent paid annually eg. your savings account pays 3% interest.

Year to Date, is from Jan 1, to the present date. So, if your savings account which pays 3%, posts interest monthly, then you'd recieve 0.25% per month. You would have recieved your first payment on January 31, and that would be year to date, for 2008.