Description: The selection of a discount rate is one of the most important assumptions for the calculations of present values. The paper presents the basic properties of the key measurements of investment returns and the discount rates associated with these measurements.

Description: Part one of a two-part article, to be contined in Feb 2014. Provides useful rules of thumb for breaking out investment return into components of periodic arithmetic return, geometric return, the volatility of returns and the correlation of returns by asset class. Develops and relates these axiomatic concepts into rules of thumb for estimating quantiles of a range of stochastic returns.