Calculate Investment Income: A Simple Guide to Yield

Investment income can come from a number of sources, such as dividends, capital gains, interest payments and any other return made from an investment. The percentage of return you make from each investment vehicle is called a yield. A yield is calculated by dividing income by the amount of the investment.

How to Calculate Investment Income

Step 1

Gather your information. Pull together all paperwork from your investments. If you have multiple investment vehicles, you will need to know the income stream from each investment as well as how much you paid for the investment.

Step 2

Create a spreadsheet in Excel. Create three columns. In Column A, put "Investment." In Column B, put "Income Generated." And in Column C, put "Amount Paid." List all of your investments with the associated information.

Step 3

Create a Column D called "Yield" to the right of Column C. Create a formula in Column D that divides Column B by Column C, or "Income Generated" by "Amount Paid." The formula should read "=(Bn/Cn)" where n is the row number.

Step 4

Take the average of Column D using the AVERAGE function. This is your investment-income percentage. To calculate a dollar amount, take the sum of Column B, or "Income Generated,", using the SUM function.

Tip

Don't forget to take any taxes, commissions and other fees into consideration.

Warning

This is not to be construed as investment advice.