HP 10BII Financial Calculator

Product Information

A common task when using a financial calculator, especially when working with the time value of money functions, is changing the sign of a number.

If you look closely at the other keys on the financial calculator you’ll notice that they have white letters, gold letters, and purple letters.

When solving for time value of money problems it’s critical that the frequency of the N, I, and PMT components match. Early production runs were of poor quality; newer calculators have apparently solved this shortcoming. So, assuming you have your financial calculator set to 1 payment per year and you’ve cleared all registers, let’s go through some example problems to demonstrate how to use the time value of money functions on the HP 10BII financial calculator. To solve for the interest rate, let’s take a look at a variation on the present value problem above.

Modeled after the extremely popular 10bII Financial Calculator by Hewlett Packard, the 10bii Financial Calculator combines precise mathematics, intuitive display, and ease-of-use in one compact package. For instance, the keyboard layout is different, with two separate shift keys, and the available numbered-storage registers is reduced from 15 to 10.So, now we know 4 out of the 5 time value of money components and we can easily solve for the 5th unknown interest rate component, which turns out to be 6. HP also produces the HP 10BII+ which includes some minor improvements and some more advanced functionality such as probability distribution calculations. The first in 2001, branded as "10BII", had a golden bezel and mauve statistical shift button and key labels.

In a survey of the PropertyMetrics audience the HP 10BII was the most popular financial calculator used, so for the purposes of this article we’ll be focusing on the HP 10BII. Whether you are a seasoned investor or you just have questions about paying off your credit card, refinancing your home, or planning your 401(k) contributions, the 10bii Financial Calculator has the answers to YOUR financial questions! Time value of money is the economic principle that a dollar received today has greater value than a dollar received in the future. There are many features of the HP 10BII that we did not cover in this article, but the elements we discussed will give you a solid foundation. Special thanks to our interns, Brian LaBarbera and Greg Rucker for helping us to create this great app for you!Assuming you’re comfortable with the concepts of the time value of money (in particular the 5 components of all time value of money problems), the time value of money keys on the 10BII are very intuitive to use. In this article we’ll solve all of these problems by taking a deep dive into how to use a financial calculator. Now that we have a general feel for how the financial calculator is organized, let’s go over some frequently used functions and useful settings you should understand. By expanding on HP's traditional presentation, the 10bii Financial Calculator allows quick and intuitive building and visualization of TVM (Time Value of Money) calculations and Uneven Cash Flow scenarios and lets you type in whole equations for easy review and one-touch evaluation. To use the M register, simply input or calculate a number, then hit the M register key as show below.

As with the cosmetic variants of the original 10B, these two variants also appear to have identical functionality. Several additional scientific functions were also added, such as trigonometric and hyperbolic functions, their inverses, and several additional statistical regression models. One of the most common problems people make when using a financial calculator is inputting inconsistent time value of money components. All you have to do is use the ON Button to turn it on or the Gold Key first then the ON button to turn it off. The white letters are the primary functions, while the gold and purple letters indicate alternative functions for the same key.The HP 10BII makes this easy with a dedicated plus and minus ( + / – ) sign key, which toggles the sign of an inputted number. After a quick check it appears that the number of periods and the rate are actually expressed in different compounding periods, which of course presents a conflict.