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Essay on Time Value Of Money

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Time Value of Money
The time value of money serves as the foundation of finance. The fact that a dollar today is worth more than a dollar in the future is the basis for investments and business growth. The future value of a dollar is based on the present dollar amount, interest rate and time period involved. Financial calculators and tables can assist in computing the future and present values, which eases the pain of the mathematically challenged. Yield or rate of return can also be calculated.
One financial application of the time value of money is buying or selling a house mortgage note. Although normally handled by financial institutions, individuals can use this as an investment opportunity. The first step is having the note …show more content…

The MBA graduate will add to this calculation the opportunity cost which D. Henderson points out is redundant in word use, but an invaluable concept to the financial world. The true cost of something is what you give up to get it. "… as contract lawyers and airplane pilots know, redundancy can be a virtue. In this case, its virtue is to remind us that the cost of using a resource arises from the value of what it could be used for instead. "(2002).
In the above example, if the consumer was to buy a less expensive car, or finance less of the car price, the funds not being used for car payments could be invested for a higher yield. The table (See Amortization Table 1) in the text demonstrates how part of the loan payment is applied towards the principle and rest goes towards reducing the principle amount (Block, Hirt, 2005).
The main learning of the amortization table is that the owner will pay slightly more in interest costs (41,000) as he did for the loan of 40,000. So the car that was priced at 40,000 actually ended up costing the owner 81,000. The amount paid is compounded if the owner takes into consideration the money that could have been earned if part of those funds had been invested. At a return rate of 8%, if the buyer had purchased a less expense car at 30,000 and invested 500 per year over 20 years, he would have 22,881 out

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