how do you calculate compound interest with multiple payments?

[Guest]

I have a series of unequal payments over unequal time periods. I would like
to calculate the compounded interest of these payments. Is there an easier
way than setting this up in a table?

 

[Don Guillett]

have a look in the help index for financial functions or XIRR

 

[Fred Smith]

To answer your second question, you need to set up a table with each payment and
the date made. Then feed this table to XIRR.

 

[joeu2004]

To answer your second question, you need to set up a table with each payment and
the date made. Then feed this table to XIRR.

While I prefer to do it that way, too, the following paradigm works
just fine:

XIRR({-10000,-1000,-2000,30000},
{"1/1/2000","3/4/2001","5/6/2003","10/4/2006"})

 

[Fred Smith]

You're correct. But you still have to list each payment and each date. I think
the OP was hoping you could specify a count, as in 10 payments of $x, followed
by 14 payments of $y, etc. (as some HP calculators support).

But XIRR isn't that smart.

 

[joeu2004]

You're correct. But you still have to list each payment and each date. I think
the OP was hoping you could specify a count, as in 10 payments of $x, followed
by 14 payments of $y, etc. (as some HP calculators support).
But XIRR isn't that smart.

I agree: that is a nice feature that I miss (since I use an HP 12C
extensively). But that does not sound like "a series of unequal
payments over unequal time periods", which the OP wrote. I suspect
that the OP was referring to a PV table where she would derive the
discount rate using a binary search. I sometimes resort to that
myself, especiallly when I get tired of trying to find a "guess" that
helps the brain-dead Excel algorithms. But that is neither here nor
there.

 

[Guest]

Thanks all. This has been helpful. Think I've got it from here.