Compound interest, what is it ?

1. Jun 8, 2009

Feezik

I know interest is compute by formula

interest=(All money person get) - expense

but I hear there say compound interest, what is it ?
after all how many interest is there ?

Thank you

2. Jun 8, 2009

fatra2

Re: interest

Only the one you have to understand life problems.

Hi there,

I am not an economist, but your equation does not seem right to me. The money you gain less your expenses is not considered to be an interest, but the left over from your wage.

Now, if you decide to put this left over in a bank (instead of spending on beer), the bank will offer you some money for it, called the interest. To encourage to put some more money in an account, a bank will say that they give you 3% of interest annually on the money you put there.

The idea behind compound interest lies in the fact that you leave your money at the bank for a longer period of time. To make it simple, let's take an example: you put 100$at 3% annual interest rate. At the end of the first year, your bank account will show 103$ (100$base + 3$ interest). The second year, the 3% interest rate is not on 100$, but on 103$. Therefore, at the end of the second year, your bank account would show 106.09$. As you can see, there is 0.09$ more than the first year. If you leave you money in the bank for a third year, your bank account would show 109.2727$. And so on. As you can see, your 3% interest is compound by the interest money left in the account. Hope this is more clear now. Cheers 3. Jun 8, 2009 Jimmy Snyder Re: interest That's not the formula for interest, the formula for profit is: profit = (All money person get) - expense The formula for interest is interest = principle x interest rate The formula for compound interest in the first period is the same. However in the second period simple interest is interest = principle x interest rate but compound interest is interest = (principle x (1 + interest rate)) x interest rate For instance, if the principle is$100, and the interest rate is 5%, the for the first two years, the simple interest is:
1st year $5 2nd year$5
while compound interest is
1st year $5 2nd year$5.25
In the second case, you are getting interest on your interest. That's what compounding means.

4. Jun 8, 2009

Astronuc

Staff Emeritus
Re: interest

Interest is basically the cost of money, or the cost of borrowing money.

Compound interest is effectively interest on the unpaid interest in addition to the principal or money borrowed. It's the same as interest on savings.

7. Jun 8, 2009

Jimmy Snyder

Re: interest

As Astronuc pointed out, there is
gross profit = income - expense
net profit = income - expense - tax
Which of these is pure probably depends on your politics. For Socialists, probably neither is pure.

8. Jun 8, 2009

Staff: Mentor

Re: interest

I think an easier way to explain compound interest is that "compounding" is just the frequency with which the interest is calculated.

If you start with $100 and have 12% interest and calculate (compound) it annually, then at the end of 1 year you'll have$112, after two you'll have $125.44, three you'll have$140.49.

But if you compound it monthly, then after 1 month you'll have $101 (1/12th of 12%), two months you'll have$102.01, three months $103.03.....and 12 months$112.68, two years $126.97, and three years,$143.08.

Compounding maximizes the interest earned by ensuring you are always earning intrest on top of interest: most bank accounts and loans are compounded continuously.

Some fixed-income investments such as CDs are not compounded at all (unless you automatically roll them over after they mature...).

9. Jun 8, 2009

Jimmy Snyder

Re: interest

Both simple and compound interest have a frequency of calculation. For instance $100 at 12% annual simple interest would generate$12 a year for the duration of the transaction. The same would be true of 1% monthly simple interest.

10. Jun 8, 2009

Staff: Mentor

Re: interest

Huh, I stand corrected. Here's the wiki on it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest#Simple_interest

I guess, though, since you don't pay interest on interest in a simple interest loan, you can't ever do more frequent calculating than once per payment period.

11. Jun 8, 2009

rootX

Re: interest

As I understand you are want to know how many different kind of interests are there.

Looking at all the earlier posts, I couldn't find anyone
1) making a distinction between real and nominal
2) taking into account inflation

Real profits (or pure if you meant that by real) are not equal to accounting profits where you account for deprecations etc.

You need to go beyond mathematical definition if you are doing some accounting/financial stuff else I don't think you need to know depreciation/inflation/nominal (might need to know nominal vs real) so you may ignore this post.