Inflation

You will no doubt be offered many investment instruments by brokers and financial planners you hire or come across in search for suitable investment opportunities. Most of them will be designed to enrich the offeror at the expense of the buyer. You will need a tool for evaluating these various offers. Below are some standard interest equations which can be used to compare offers and instruments.

Item	Cash-flow diagram	Equations	where
Compound Interest			S = the future sum P = the present value i = the rate of interest n = the number of compounding periods
Uniform Series			S = the future sum A = the uniform series i = the rate of interest n = the number of compounding periods
Uniform Series			P = the present value A = the uniform series i = the rate of interest n = the number of compounding periods
Converting from annual to sub-annual	Exact equivalence		i_n= annual interest rate i_q= sub-annual interest rate q= number of compounding periods in a year
Converting from annual to sub-annual	nominal rate		i_n= nominal annual interest rate i_q= sub-annual interest rate q= number of compounding periods in a year p= total number of compounding periods