If you're looking for a fund that's low risk but offers a steady rate of return, look for stable long-term return percentages and low standard deviations.
After all, they point out, numbers like the growth rate of G.D.P. look pretty good.
Justin Modray at Candid Financial Advice says this is a safe way of having a flutter, and today's average prize rate of 1.25% looks reasonable.
Ms. McKeown also noted that the France's February jobless rate at 10.8 percent — double the German rate of 5.4 percent — "looks very worrying".
The overall unemployment rate of 8.3% looks better because companies are hunkering down and retaining staff in the hope of a recovery.
The adverse scenario for card losses envisaged in American banks' stress tests, a cumulative two-year loss rate of 22.5%, looks increasingly like the base case to others.
Given continued weakness in the prices of oil and other commodities, Britain's rate of inflation looks as though it will enter negative territory outright deflation in coming months.That poses a conundrum for Mark Carney and the Bank of England.
True, a real growth rate of 7.5% looks a little too lively given sluggish car sales, feeble demand for credit, and the soggy revenue growth reported by many big listed firms.
Cheered on by finance professors, Wall Street analysts, investors and hedge funds, companies have learned how to make metrics like Internal Rate of Return look great by one; outsourcing everything, two, getting assets off their balance sheet, and three only investing in things that pay off fast.
"You have to consider what the rate of recovery looks like in the end market," he says.
