Note to Students and Teachers:
The Optimal Purchase Time problem is an application of derivatives that often is studied in Business Calculus courses.
This applet compares the evolving value of an asset with that of a deposit growing at a specified interest rate. This enables the user to determine how the asset is performing at any given time and whether it is a good buy or sell compared to a fixed interest security. It also shows how the tangency of the asset value function to an exponential growth function corresponds to a critical point for the present value of the asset's future value.