What is the difference between return and rate of return?

Question

Hello

Noob here.
I am reading [this webpage about the so-called Capital Asset Pricing Model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_asset_pricing_model), which states:

In finance, the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) is a model used to determine a theoretically appropriate required rate of return of an asset, …

Yet the formula’s output is E(R_i) which is the expected return (not rate of return). So is there an actual difference between both?

In: 0

Answer 1

To be nitpicky, return would refer to the absolute or total difference between the investment and the proceeds regardless of how long it took to obtain those returns. Rate of return refers to the returns on an annualized basis.

But in finance, nearly all measures and calculations are annualized. So the term “return” is typically interchangeable with “rate of return”.