Page:Hints About Investments (1926).pdf/197

 he reviews the results of his investigation. For he says on page 46: "We have seen how steady an income return was paid during the period on the diversified list of stocks, selected for Test No. 5." But in fact the annual return was, from his figures, as follows:

If this be a "steady" income it is one which may well have made its owner feel uncomfortable. For if we add the receipts of the last two years of the period together we find that they are $1,084, just nine dollars less than the income received in the first single year of the period and twenty-two dollars less than in the second. In other words the income at the end of the period was half what it had been at the beginning. On the other hand the fall in income would have been balanced by the fall in prices. But the bond-holder, whose money income would have been constant at 607.7, would have had a much fuller benefit from this increase in its buying power.

Mr. Smith's tests, however, should be