He said that depending on the fund, his returns this year have ranged from 20 to 24 percent, a better performance by far than most hedge funds this year.

The annual return on the trust has ranged from an after inflation rate of 0.5% to 2%.

Depending which figure you use, the return to Mr. Schwarzman would range from $210 million to $360 million.

His yearly returns have ranged as high as 60 percent to a low of 13 percent, and last year his funds gained 23 percent.

During the late 1810s, the return on investment ranged from about 300% to 500%.

For 25-year periods, the returns range from gains of 5.9 percent to 14.7 percent.

The returns range from about 5.75 percent for bank money market accounts to nearly 8 percent for some six-month C.D.'s.

In the second half of the 1970's, annual returns ranged from 21.7 percent to 54.6 percent.

Some 22 percent were "hyperoptimists," predicting that annual returns over the next two decades would range from 30 to 100 percent.

The total returns ranged from 24.3 percent in Australia to 9.6 percent in the Netherlands.