How to Calculate Expected Rate of Return When investing, you often want to know how much money an investment is likely to earn you. That’s where the expected rate of return comes in; it’s calculated using the probabilities of investment returns for various potential outcomes. Investors can utilize the expected return formula to help project future returns.To get more news about risk and return calculator, you can visit wikifx.com official website. Though it’s impossible to predict the future, having some idea of what to expect can be critical in setting expectations for a good return on investment.The expected rate of return — also known as expected return — is the profit or loss an investor expects from an investment, given historical rates of return and the probability of certain returns under different scenarios. The expected return formula projects potential future returns. Expected return is a speculative financial metric investors can use to determine where to invest their money. By calculating the expected rate of return on an investment, investors get an idea of how that investment may perform in the future. This financial concept can be useful when there is a robust pool of historical data on the returns of a particular investment. Investors can use the historical data to determine the probability that an investment will perform similarly in the future. However, it’s important to remember that past performance is far from a guarantee of future performance. Investors should be careful not to rely on expected returns alone when making investment decisions.To calculate the expected rate of return on a stock or other security, you need to think about the different scenarios in which the asset could see a gain or loss. For each scenario, multiply that amount of gain or loss (return) by its probability. Finally, add up the numbers you get from each scenario. The expected rate of return mentioned above looks at an investment’s potential profit and loss. In contrast, the rate of return looks at the past performance of an asset. A rate of return is the percentage change in value of an investment from its initial cost. When calculating the rate of return, you look at the net gain or loss in an investment over a particular time period. The simple rate of return is also known as the return on investment (ROI).When using probable rates of return, you’ll need the data point of the expected probability of an outcome in a given scenario. This probability can be calculated, or you can make assumptions for the probability of a return. Remember, the probability column must add up to 100%. Here’s an example of how this would look. Historical data can be a good place to start in understanding how an investment behaves. That said, investors may want to be leery of extrapolating past returns for the future. Historical data is a guide; it’s not necessarily predictive. Another limitation to the expected returns formula is that it does not consider the risk involved by investing in a particular stock or other asset class. The risk involved in an investment is not represented by its expected rate of return. In this historical return example above, 10% is the expected rate of return. What that number doesn’t reveal is the risk taken in order to achieve that rate of return. The investment experienced negative returns in the years 2014 and 2016.