How do I factor dividends and yield into the performance of a security?
Instead of a price chart can use a performance chart, which is usually expressed as a percentage increase from the original purchase price.  To factor in the dividends, you can either add in all of your dividends to the final price, or subtract the accumulated dividends from your cost basis (the initial price). Usually I've seen people treat the dividend like a separate cash flow, which is discounted if the company doesn't have a well-established dividend history. I've never really seen dividends rolled into a total return chart (except in the context of an article), probably because dividend reinvestment is a nightmare of record-keeping in a taxable account, and most folks don't do it. One of my brokers (TD Ameritrade) does allow you to plot dividend yield historically on their charts. "Good observation. In fact, the S&P index itself is guilty of not including dividends. So when you look at the index alone, the delta between any two points in time diverges, and the 20 return observed if one fails to include dividends is meaningless, in my my humble opinion. Yahoo finance will let you look at a stock ticker and offer you an ""adjusted close"" to include the dividend effect."
You could take these definitions from MSCI as an example of how to proceed.  They calculate price indices (PR) and total return indices (including dividends).  For performance benchmarks the net total return (NR) indices are usually the most relevant. In your example the gross total return (TR) is 25%. From the MSCI Index Defintions page :- The MSCI Price Indexes measure the price performance of markets   without including dividends. On any given day, the price return of an   index captures the sum of its constituents’ free float-weighted market   capitalization returns. The MSCI Total Return Indexes measure the price performance of markets   with the income from constituent dividend payments. The MSCI Daily   Total Return (DTR) Methodology reinvests an index constituent’s   dividends at the close of trading on the day the security is quoted   ex-dividend (the ex-date). Two variants of MSCI Total Return Indices are calculated: With Gross Dividends: Gross total return indexes reinvest as much as possible of a company’s   dividend distributions. The reinvested amount is equal to the total   dividend amount distributed to persons residing in the country of the   dividend-paying company. Gross total return indexes do not, however,   include any tax credits. With Net Dividends: Net total return indexes reinvest dividends after the deduction of   withholding taxes, using (for international indexes) a tax rate   applicable to non-resident institutional investors who do not benefit   from double taxation treaties. Say you buy a bond that currently costs $950, and matures in one year, at $1000 face value. It has one coupon ($50 interest payment) left. The coupon, $50, is 50/950 or 5.26%, but you get the face value, $1000, for an additional $50 return. This is why the yield to maturity is higher than current yield. If the maturity were in two years, the coupons still provide 5.26%, and the extra 1000/950 is another 5.26% over 2 years, or (approx) 2.6%/yr compounded, for a total YTM of 7.86%. This is a back-of envelope calculation, the real way to calculate is with a finance calculator. Entering PV (present value) FV (future value) PMT (coupon payment(s)) and N (number of periods). With no calculator or spreadsheet, my estimate will be pretty close. "Everything you are doing is fine. Here are a few practical notes in performing this analysis: Find all the primary filing information on EDGAR. For NYSE:MEI, you can use https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000065270&type=10-K&dateb=&owner=exclude&count=40 This is the original 10-K. To evaluate earnings growth you need per share earnings for the past three years and 10,11,12 years ago. You do NOT need diluted earnings (because in the long term share dilution comes out anyway, just like ""normalized"" earnings). The formula is avg(Y_-1+Y_-2+Y_-3) / is avg(Y_-10+Y_-11+Y_-12) Be careful with the pricing rules you are using, the asset one gets complicated. I recommend NOT using the pricing rules #6 and #7 to select the stock. Instead you can use them to set a maximum price for the stock and then you can compare the current price to your maximum price. I am also working to understand these rules and have cited Graham's rules into a checklist and worksheet to find all companies that meet his criteria. Basically my goal is to bottom feed the deals that Warren Buffett is not interested in. If you are interested to invest time into this project, please see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vuFmoJDktMYtS64od2HUTV9I351AxvhyjAaC0N3TXrA" When you sell the stock your income is from the difference of prices between when you bought the stock and when you sold it. There's no interest there. The interest is in two places: the underlying company assets (which you own, whether you want it or not), and in the distribution of the income to the owners (the dividends). You can calculate which portion of the interest income constitutes your dividend by allocating the portions of your dividend in the proportions of the company income. That would (very roughly and unreliably, of course) give you an estimate what portion of your dividend income derives from the interest. Underlying assets include all the profits of the company that haven't been distributed through dividends, but rather reinvested back into the business. These may or may not be reflected in the market price of the company. Bottom line is that there's no direct correlation between the income from the sale of the stake of ownership and the company income from interest, if any correlation at all exists. Why would you care about interest income of Salesforce? Its not a bank or a lender, they may have some interest income, but that's definitely not the main income source of the company. If you want to know how much interest income exactly the company had, you'll have to dig deep inside the quarterly and annual reports, and even then I'm not sure if you'll find it as a separate item for a company that's not in the lending business. "I will add another point to ChrisinEdmonton's answer... I recognize that this is perhaps appropriate as a comment--or maybe 1/2 of an answer, but the comment formatting is inadequate for what I want to say.  The magic formula that you need to understand is this:  (Capital Invested) * (Rate of Return) = (Income per Period) When ChrisinEdmonton says that you need $300,000, he is doing some basic algebra... (Capital Required) = (Income per Period) / (Rate of Return)  So if you're looking at $12,000 per year in passive income as a goal, and you can find a ""safe"" 4% yield, then what ChrisinEdmonton did is:  $12,000 / 0.04 = $300,000 You can use this to play around with different rates of return and see what investment options you can find to purchase. Investment categories like REITs will risk your principal a little more, but have some of the highest dividend yields of around 8%--12%. You would need $100,000--$150,000 at those yields.  Some of the safest approaches would be bonds or industrial stocks that pay dividends. Bonds exist around 3%--4%, and industrial dividend stocks (think GE or UTX or Coca Cola) tend to pay more like 2%-3%.  The key point I'm trying to make is that if you're looking for this type of passive income, I recommend that you don't plan on the income coming from gains to the investment... This was something that ChrisinEdmonton wasn't entirely clear about. It can be complicated and expensive to whittle away at a portfolio and spend it along the way." It looks like you need a lot more education on the subject. I suggest you pick up a book on investing and portfolio management to get a first idea. Dividend yields are currently way below 5% on blue chips. Unlike coupons from fixed income instruments (which, in the same risk category, pay a lot less), dividend yields are not guaranteed and neither is the invested principal amount.  In either case, your calculation is far away from reality.  Sure, there are investments (such as the mentioned direct investments in companies or housings in emerging economies) that can potentially earn you two digit percentage returns. Just remember: risk always goes both ways. A higher earning potential means higher loss potential. Also, a direct investment is a lot less liquid than an investment on a publicly quoted high turnover market place. If you suddenly need money, you really don't want to be pressed to sell real estate in an emerging market (keyword: bid ask spread). My advice: the money that you can set aside for the long term (10 years plus), invest it in stock ETFs, globally. Everything else should be invested in bond funds or even deposits, depending on when you will need the access. As others have pointed out, consider getting professional advice. As mentioned, dividends are a way of returning value to shareholders. It is a conduit of profit as companies don't legitimately control upward appreciation in their share prices. If you can't wrap your head around the risk to the reward, then this simply means you partially fit the description for a greater investment risk profile, so you need to put down Warren Buffett's books and Rich Dad Poor Dad and get an investment book that fits your risk profile. "Dividend-paying securities generally have predictable cash flows. A telecom, electric or gas utility is a great example. They collect a fairly predictable amount of money and sells goods at a fairly predictable or even regulated markup. It is easy for these companies to pay a consistent dividend since the business is ""sticky"" and insulated by cyclical factors. More cyclic investments like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Gold, etc are more exposed to the crests and troughs of the economy. They swing with the economy, although not always on the same cycle. The DJIA is a basket of 30 large industrial stocks. Gold is a commodity that spikes when people are faced with uncertainty. The ""Alpha"" and ""Beta"" of a stock will give you some idea of the general behavior of a stock against the entire market, when the market is trending up and down respectively." A share is more than something that yields dividends, it is part ownership of the company and all of its assets. If the company were to be liquidated immediately the shareholders would get (a proportion of) the net value (assets - liabilities) of the company because they own it. If a firm is doing well then its assets are increasing (i.e. more cash assets from profits) therefore the value of the underlying company has risen and the intrinsic value of the shares has also increased. The price will not reflect the current value of the firms assets and liabilities because it will also include the net present value of expected future flows. Working out the expected future flows is a science on par with palmistry and reading chicken entrails so don't expect to work out why a company is trading at a price so much higher than current assets - liabilities (or so much lower in companies that are expected to fail). This speculation is in addition to price speculation that you mention in the question. Dividend yield is a tough thing to track because it's a moving target.  Dividends are paid periodically the yield is calculated based on the stock price when the dividend is declared (usually, though some services may update this more frequently).   I like to calculate my own dividend by annualizing the dividend payment divided by my cost basis per share.  As an example, say you have shares in X, Co.  X issues a quarterly dividend of $1 per share and the share price is $100; coincidentally this is the price at which you purchased your shares. But a few years goes by and now X issues it's quarterly dividend of $1.50 per share, and the share price is $160. However your shares only cost you $100. Your annual yield on X is 6%, not the published 3.75%.  All of this is to say that looking back on dividend yields is somewhat similar to nailing jello to the wall.  Do you look at actual dividends paid through the year divided by share price?  Do you look at the annualized dividend at the time of issue then average those?  The stock price will fluctuate, that will change the yield; depending on where you bought your stock, your actual yield will vary from the published amount as well. Having a good dividend yield doesn't guarantee that a stock is safe. In the future, the company may run into financial trouble, stop paying dividends, or even go bankrupt. For this reason, you should never buy a stock just because it has a high dividend yield. You also need some criteria to determine whether that stock is safe to buy. Personally, I consider a stock is reasonably safe if it meets the following criteria: This is a great question for understanding how futures work, first let's start with your assumptions The most interesting thing here is that neither of these things really matters for the price of the futures.  This may seem odd as a futures contract sounds like you are betting on the future price of the index, but remember that the current price already includes the expectations of future earnings as well! There is actually a fairly simple formula for the price of a futures contract (note the link is for forward contracts which are very similar but slightly more simple to understand).  Note, that if you are given the current price of the underlying the futures price depends essentially only on the interest rate and the dividends paid during the length of the futures contract.  In this case the dividend rate for the S&P500 is higher than the prevailing interest rate so the futures price is lower than the current price.  It is slightly more complicated than this as you can see from the formula, but that is essentially how it works. Note, this is why people use futures contracts to mimic other exposures.  As the price of the future moves (pretty much) in lockstep with the underlying and sometimes using futures to hedge exposures can be cheaper than buying etfs or using swaps. Edit: Example of the effect of dividends on futures prices For simplicity, let's imagine we are looking at a futures position on a stock that has only one dividend (D) in the near term and that this dividend happens to be scheduled for the day before the futures' delivery date.  To make it even more simple lets say the price of the stock is fairly constant around a price P and interest rates are near zero.  After the dividend, we would expect the price of the stock to be P' ~ P - D as if you buy the stock after the dividend you wouldn't get that dividend but you still expect to get the rest of the value from additional future cash flows of the company. However, if we buy the futures contract we will eventually own the stock but only after the dividend happens.  Since we don't get that dividend cash that the owners of the stock will get we certainly wouldn't want to pay as much as we would pay for the stock (P).  We should instead pay about P' the (expected) value of owning the stock after that date.   So, in the end, we expect the stock price in the future (P') to be the futures' price  today (P') and that should make us feel a lot more comfortable about what we our buying.  Neither owning the stock or future is really necessarily favorable in the end you are just buying slightly different future expected cash flows and should expect to pay slightly different prices. Dividend yield is not the only criteria for stock selection. Companies past performance, management, past deals, future expansion plans, and debt equity ratio should be considered. I would also like to suggest you that one should avoid making any investment in the companies that are directly affected by frequent changes in regulations released by government. All the above mentioned criteria are important for your decision as they make an impact on your investment and can highly affect the profits. "The term you're looking for is yield (though it's defined the other way around from your ""payout efficiency"", as dividend / share price, which makes no substantive difference). You're simply saying that you want to buy high-yield shares, which is a common investment strategy. But you have to consider that often a high-yielding share has a reason for the high yield. You probably don't want to buy shares in a company whose current yield is 10% but will go into liquidation next year." "To try and address your 'how'  it goes a bit like this. You need to first assess how your stuff is invested, if for example half is in stocks, and the other half is in bonds, then you will need to calculate a 'blended' rate for what are reasonable 'average return' for both. That might mean looking at the S&P500 or Russell 3000 for the stock portion, and some bond index for that portion, then 'blend the rates', in this case using a formula like this then compare the blended rate with the return in your IRA. It is generally a lot more useful to compare the various components of your total return separately, especially if you investing with a particular style such as 'agressive growth' or you are buying actual bonds and not a bond fund since most of the bond oriented indexes are for bond funds, which you can't really compare well with buying and holding bonds to maturity. Lets say your stock side was two mutual funds with different styles, one 'large cap' the other 'aggressive growth'.  In that case you might want to compare each one of those funds with an appropriate index such as those provided by Morningstar  If you find one of them is consistently below the average, you might want to consider finding an alternative fund who's manager has a better track record (bearing in mind that ""past performance...."") For me (maybe someone has a good suggestion here) bonds are the hard thing to judge.  The normal goal of actually owning bonds (as opposed to a fund) is to retain the entire principal value because there's no principal fluctuation if you hold the bond to maturity (as long as you choose well and the issuer doesn't default)   The actual value 'right now' of a bond (as in selling before maturity) and bond funds, goes up and down in an inverse relationship with interest rates.  That means the indexes for such things also go up and down a lot, so it's very hard to compare them to a bond you intend to hold to maturity. Also, for such a bond, there's not a lot of point to 'switch out' unless you are worried about the issuer defaulting.  If rates are up from what you are getting on your bonds, then you'll have to sell your bond at a discount, and all that happens is you'll end up holding a different bond that is worth less, but has higher interest (basically the net return is likely to be pretty much the same).  The better approach there is generally to 'ladder' your maturity dates so you get opportunities to reinvest at whatever the prevailing rates are, without having to sell at a discount..  anyway the point is that I'm not sure there's a lot of value to comparing return on the bond portion of an IRA unless it's invested in bond funds (which a lot of people wanting to preserve principal tend to avoid)"