morgaine300
May 12, 2010, 10:35 PM
Present value of a series of cash flows involved minus the initial outlay of cash for an investment.
The present values can generally be gotten using factors off a chart that may be in an appendix in your book.
The series of cash flows can be outright given in the problem, or can involved a whole mess of calculations that might take you hours to figure out. There isn't an "equation" for that.
So, while the basic "equation" (if you want to call a subtraction an equation) is pretty simple, a NPV problem can get quite complicated.