How to Find How Long an Investment Takes with PDURATION in Excel

Work out how many years a CD needs to grow into a house down payment, and the calendar year you will get there.

You will learn to

• Find the years needed to reach a target
• Switch to monthly compounding
• Turn a duration into a target year

How it works

PDURATION(rate, pv, fv) returns the number of periods an investment needs to grow from pv to fv at a fixed rate, with no extra deposits. =PDURATION(4.2%,25000,40000) shows $25,000 takes about 11.4 years to reach $40,000 at 4.2%.

The periods match the rate: use an annual rate for years, or rate/12 for months. Unlike most finance functions, both values are entered as positives. Add ROUNDUP to the start year to find the calendar year you reach the goal.

=PDURATION(B3,B2,B4)