The group recommends that the standardized disclosure should give the consumer an understandable measure of long-term risk. This might include such measures as the annualized volatility of the inflation-adjusted ten-year returns, and the range of real payoffs that an investment might earn in ten years, including 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles.

Not all investors will be able to interpret even these simple measures of the outlook for an investment. But neither are all consumers of food able to interpret the quantities of nutrients that are shown on nutritional labels. These facts should be there to allow those people who will look at them to do so, and to encourage them to spread the information via word of mouth to others with whom they are acquainted.

The standardized disclosure label should not, however, include past returns on investments. This is because most investors overreact to past returns, shifting their money around in a largely futile effort to channel it to managers who can beat the market. This requirement is analogous to that of nutrition labeling, which does not allow listing of nutritional quantities that are not significant in the usual serving size.

"...standardized disclosure label should not, however, include past returns on investments"