Expand Your Knowledge: Geometric Mean When data consist of percentages, ratios, growth rates, or other rates of change, the geometric mean is a useful measure of central tendency. For n data values, Geometric mean 5 n product of the n data values, assuming all data values are positive To fi nd the average growth factor over 5 years of an investment in a mutual fund with growth rates of 10% the fi rst year, 12% the second year, 14.8%

the third year, 3.8% the fourth year, and 6% the fi fth year, take the geometric mean of 1.10, 1.12, 1.148, 1.038, and 1.16. Find the average growth factor of this investment.

Note that for the same data, the relationships among the harmonic, geometric, and arithmetic means are harmonic mean  geometric mean  arithmetic mean (Source: Oxford Dictionary of Statistics).