The average rate of return on this investment is about 9 %.
Practice makes perfect
Let's begin with recalling the definition of geometric mean.
The geometric mean of two positive numbers aand bis the numberxsuch thatx=sqrt(a* b).In our exercise, we are given that the average rate of return on an investment over two years is the geometric mean of the two annual returns, which are 12 % and 7 %. Let p be the average rate of return on an investment over two years.
p=sqrt(12* 7)
Let's evaluate the square root on the right hand side of the equation.