A friend was bragging to a statistician over coffee one afternoon how two-day volatility in the stock market had treated his holdings rather kindly. He chortled, "Yeah... yesterday I gained 60% but today I lost 40% for a net gain of 20%."
The statistician sat in horrified silence. He finally mustered the courage and said, "My good friend I'm sorry to inform you but you had a net loss of 4%!!!"
* My little tale above illustrates how pervasive innumeracy is in our society. Always remember, "Percent of What?"
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