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Total return is the investment objective that you want when you are seeking investments that both produce income and appreciate in value. With the stock market yielding higher than average and having gone down over 50%, there are many assets that offer both capital appreciation and income. An example right now would be the Vanguard high yield bond fund (VWEHX) which I like to follow due to its low expenses and higher end of the junk bond arena.
A quick yahoo finance check reveals that it is yielding 9.86% and is currently priced at $ 4.46 per share down from over $8 in the late 1990’s. That sure was a long time ago, however, it was $ 6.30 as recently as 2007. Of course, it may well head down again, especially with the uncertainly surrounding the U.S. automobile market and the predicted bond default rate but investors are now getting paid a yield of almost 10% while they wait.
I don’t make any financial recommendations but I provide this as an example of an investment that currently has a very good income and has a good probability for capital appreciation based on history. The link below will take you to yahoo if you want to pull up a chart and other information about VWEHX for yourself.