Recreate Excel RATE function using Newton's Method

Question

I'm working on converting a mortgage calculator in PHP, but I don't necessarily need a PHP solution. I'm looking for the logic needed to replicate the Excel RATE function. I've found a solution which uses bisection, and if worse comes to worse, I use that.

I know someone out there in the interwebs world has knowledge of such a function, so I'd love to have an easy answer instead of creating a solution from scratch.

References:

• http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/rate-HP005209232.aspx
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_method

Thanks

Answer 1

Implementation of the MS Excel RATE() function using the secant method (a finite difference approximation of Newton's method) taken from PHPExcel:

define('FINANCIAL_MAX_ITERATIONS', 128);
define('FINANCIAL_PRECISION', 1.0e-08);


function RATE($nper, $pmt, $pv, $fv = 0.0, $type = 0, $guess = 0.1) {

    $rate = $guess;
    if (abs($rate) < FINANCIAL_PRECISION) {
        $y = $pv * (1 + $nper * $rate) + $pmt * (1 + $rate * $type) * $nper + $fv;
    } else {
        $f = exp($nper * log(1 + $rate));
        $y = $pv * $f + $pmt * (1 / $rate + $type) * ($f - 1) + $fv;
    }
    $y0 = $pv + $pmt * $nper + $fv;
    $y1 = $pv * $f + $pmt * (1 / $rate + $type) * ($f - 1) + $fv;

    // find root by secant method
    $i  = $x0 = 0.0;
    $x1 = $rate;
    while ((abs($y0 - $y1) > FINANCIAL_PRECISION) && ($i < FINANCIAL_MAX_ITERATIONS)) {
        $rate = ($y1 * $x0 - $y0 * $x1) / ($y1 - $y0);
        $x0 = $x1;
        $x1 = $rate;

        if (abs($rate) < FINANCIAL_PRECISION) {
            $y = $pv * (1 + $nper * $rate) + $pmt * (1 + $rate * $type) * $nper + $fv;
        } else {
            $f = exp($nper * log(1 + $rate));
            $y = $pv * $f + $pmt * (1 / $rate + $type) * ($f - 1) + $fv;
        }

        $y0 = $y1;
        $y1 = $y;
        ++$i;
    }
    return $rate;
}   //  function RATE()

Answer 2

I tried to use the code above, but the results simply aren´t the same as Excel (or Google Spreadsheet).

I dont know if you need to implement this function yet, but in any case, I looked at how this algorithm was built and even though I was not able to access the excel source code (or the google worksheet) I found that this is not a simple calculation. About this math, more can be read here:

https://brownmath.com/bsci/loan.htm#Eq8

The function, in PHP, may be something like this:

function rate($nprest, $vlrparc, $vp, $guess = 0.25) {
    $maxit = 100;
    $precision = 14;
    $guess = round($guess,$precision);
    for ($i=0 ; $i<$maxit ; $i++) {
        $divdnd = $vlrparc - ( $vlrparc * (pow(1 + $guess , -$nprest)) ) - ($vp * $guess);
        $divisor = $nprest * $vlrparc * pow(1 + $guess , (-$nprest - 1)) - $vp;
        $newguess = $guess - ( $divdnd / $divisor );
        $newguess = round($newguess, $precision);
        if ($newguess == $guess) {
            return $newguess;
        } else {
            $guess = $newguess;
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Answer 3

For Laravel use the same function but you remove define

define('FINANCIAL_MAX_ITERATIONS', 128);
define('FINANCIAL_PRECISION', 1.0e-08);

and financial_max_iterations = 20; -> same excel

The code is:

function RATE($nper, $pmt, $pv, $fv = 0.0, $type = 0, $guess = 0.1) {
    $financial_max_iterations = 20;
    $financial_precision = 0.00000008;

    $rate = $guess;
    if (abs($rate) < $financial_precision) {
        $y = $pv * (1 + $nper * $rate) + $pmt * (1 + $rate * $type) * $nper + $fv;
    } else {
        $f = exp($nper * log(1 + $rate));
        $y = $pv * $f + $pmt * (1 / $rate + $type) * ($f - 1) + $fv;
    }
    $y0 = $pv + $pmt * $nper + $fv;
    $y1 = $pv * $f + $pmt * (1 / $rate + $type) * ($f - 1) + $fv;

    // find root by secant method
    $i  = $x0 = 0.0;
    $x1 = $rate;
    while ((abs($y0 - $y1) > $financial_precision) && ($i < $financial_max_iterations)) {
        $rate = ($y1 * $x0 - $y0 * $x1) / ($y1 - $y0);
        $x0 = $x1;
        $x1 = $rate;

        if (abs($rate) < $financial_precision) {
            $y = $pv * (1 + $nper * $rate) + $pmt * (1 + $rate * $type) * $nper + $fv;
        } else {
            $f = exp($nper * log(1 + $rate));
            $y = $pv * $f + $pmt * (1 / $rate + $type) * ($f - 1) + $fv;
        }

        $y0 = $y1;
        $y1 = $y;
        ++$i;
    }
    return $rate;
}  

it worked for me