You put it in a steel tank, it sits there for arbitrary periods of time, you put it in a pipe, it goes down the pipe, it doesn't mess up the pipe at all. (scientificamerican.com)
We realized early on that the traditional reporting time frames (YTD, 1 -, 3 -, 5 - and 10 - year periods) were meaningless at best and seriously misleading at worst since they capture arbitrary periods unrelated to the rhythms of the market. (mutualfundobserver.com)
When I buy a stake in a firm, I have no idea — and neither does anyone else, no matter what they might tell you — whether the shares will be up or down 50 percent within the arbitrary period it takes this little rock upon which we live to orbit the nearest star (to borrow a phrase). (thebalance.com)