This contrasts with the price return, which takes into account only the capital gain on an investment.
In 2010 an academic paper highlighted this issue found with most web charts in the 'compare' mode, and was published in the Journal of Behavioral Finance.
[3][4] Stock and bond funds provide annual Total Return values summarizing the last ten years of operation.
This slightly understates the total return because it ignores the reinvestment of dividends, as soon as they are paid, for purchasing more of the security.
The problem can lead to the pernicious inversion of performance ordering with bond ETF's or stocks paying high dividends.