The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition the total return of a security refers to the gain or loss, in percentage terms, derived from both the price change and any income the investment pays over a specific time period. The Globe's John Heinzl writes for example, shares of Royal Bank rose 24.5 per cent last year. This is the gain an investor would have made from the price change alone, but RBC also paid dividends during the year. To approximate the total return, you could add the stock's yield, which was 4.1 per cent at the start of the period, to the price change, which gives you a combined return of 28.6 per cent. However, this number underestimates the true total return, for two reasons. First, Royal Bank raised its dividend twice during the 12 months in question, so that needs to be reflected in the calculation. Second, by definition the total return assumes that all dividends, interest and other income are reinvested in the security. As such, the total return includes the effects of compounding. Taking these two factors into account, it turns out that RBC's actual total return for the year ended June 30 was 29.2 per cent. There are websites like longrundata that can do the calculations.