Yield: The income return an investment gives you (e.g. dividend or coupon), based on the price you paid for it. Usually expressed as an annual percentage rate based on the cost of the investment. People often search for yield. It is unclear whether they ever find it, but this refers to people seeking something that pays a high yield. This search is as frequent as it is odd. A yield is the maximum payment an investor will receive. If the underlying investment goes well, the investor receives the promised yield. But if the investment does not go well, the investor will receive less than the promised yield and may even lose capital. You are better off with a 3% yield you receive for sure than with a 5% yield that you have 50% chances to receive (and 50% chance to receive only you capital back, hence a yield of zero). Yield seeking is often given as the main reason for the growing popularity of private debt. As private debt goes down quite low in the capital structure, it is quite junior, hence offer high yield, but the expected returns highly depend on probability of default and recovery rate in case of default.
