Income coming from interest payments, dividends, capital gains collected upon the sale of a security or other assets, and any other profit that is made through an investment vehicle of any kind.
Investopedia Says:
Generally, most people earn a large portion of their total net income through employment income. However, disciplined saving and investment in the financial markets can grow moderate savings into large investment portfolios, yielding an investor a large annual investment income.
In income statements of publicly traded companies, you will commonly see an item called investment income (or losses); this is where the company reports the portion of the net income that was obtained through investments made with surplus cash as opposed to being earned with the company's usual line of business.
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