What is the return?” is the most important question for people looking to make an investment decision. While there is no taking away the importance of earning an adequate return, the suitability of an investment for the needs that it is expected to fulfil goes beyond just this number.
Consider the difficulty of trying to fund a fixed regular payout to meet college expenses out of equity investments, or to build a retirement corpus purely from low-risk debt investments. It is important, therefore, to also understand the nature of returns offered by an investment and align it to the needs of the goal. A mismatch between the two may well lead to a situation where the goals remain unmet.
