In the days, this would constitute a severe danger signal that the market is vulnerable to a decisively sharp drop via massive switching, until more normal relationships between and bond yields are restored. But today, such an incipient danger signal is merely shrugged off-even by the professionalsin view of the wide-spread alarm of expected continuing inflation. Thus, another of the old axioms of the market, like generals, apparently has faded away, as Thorstein Veblen, American economist, would say, by habitual disuse. Intense interest is especially concentrated in stock issues, as indicated by the low state of current yields and very multipliers associated with these securities. With current yields at something less than 2% for many of these issues, it can be concluded, rather poetically, that hope springs eternal. Naturally, the rationale of growth-conscious, inflation-hedging investors is the expectation of exceedingly rapid growth rates of earning power, dividends, and market values, thereby justifying the very great premiums that must be paid for the privilege of owning these high performance With characteristic faith in the future, many investors expect to be far better off with stocks over surprisingly short periods of ownership, and that, in a distant period, such as five years, they will be rich. Such attitudes, forming a kind of new orthodoxy about the market, gives sufficient cause to stop briefly and take account of the simple mathematics of compound interest, as this technique applies to the universe of stocks. We shall take note of past compound growth rates as a basis for mechanical projection, and will see that, except in the most extraordinary cases, the outcomes can be very short of implied expectations, and that normally the period of necessary ownership must be considerably longer than five years in achieving satisfactory rewards (as alternatives to other types or classes of securities). In reaching a target average yield of, say, 5 % on investment cost, the growth ownership period must normally exceed a decade at current prices, as the sequel will attempt to confirm. This is a very great time premium which only the most persevering investors will recognize as a probable fact of life. Accordingly, going back to the simple mathematics of compound interest is a constructive step in the right direction, in the appraisal of potential risks and rewards associated with stocks.