Ciggys,I am talking about captial gain on the share value, let's...

Ciggys,

I am talking about captial gain on the share value, let's say you buy 10,000 CBA in 1998 at $25 per share.
$250,000 Dividend $3 x 10,000 = $30,000 x 10 years = $525,000 = 120% profit. Yes and no.
The smart and hard working investor would have traded her many many times, may even be able to sell her at $55 dollars, and buy her back at $30 dollars. The lazy one will let it just sit there.
Just imagine, 10,000 units on a conservative side was sold for $50 a share. Because the investor pays attention to the market, study and research, understand that the US market can not be sustain at these high leverage level(there are people like that, they know what is going on - example Peter Shiff). That would be $500,000 + $300,000 = $800,000! The hard working and smart one got what he deserve.

Ciggys, money depreciate, you have to understand, in 1998 one CBA unit ($25) buys 36.76 litre of unleaded petrol, and today one CBA unit ($25) buys 23 litre of unleaded petrol.

In 1998 one CBA buys 4 packs of Ciggys, in 2008 one CBA buys two packs of Ciggys.