The stock market offers many opportunities. You can earn a return on your excess cash by investing in the right stocks instead of just leaving the money in a checking account. Many people including Warren Buffet made lots of money investing in stocks. Can you select the best stock for your portfolio by using a simple financial app like Boachsoft Plata? The answer is a definite yes.

Dividends are the periodic sums of money that are paid to shareholders. It may be paid quarterly, semiannually or annually. Studies have proven that shares with dividend payments that grow year after year out-perform the other shares. They consistently provide shareholders with good returns and are associated with less risk which is paradoxical because the lower the risk the lower the expected return.

To determine dividend growth rate just when you are ready to purchase stock using a financial app like Boachsoft Plata first just use an online tool like yahoo finance to search for the dividends that have been paid over a few years. Record them.

Switch on your phone or tablet and start a financial app like Boachsoft Plata. Choose the Time Value of Money Calculator. Enter your first dividend in the present value field. This should be the earliest dividend paid out that you wrote. Skip the annual interest rate field. Enter zero in the payment field. The number of periods is the number of consecutive dividends you have written down minus one. So if you write down 5 dividends paid out down your number of periods would be five minus 1 which is four. Enter the value in the periods field. Skip the 'Compounded/yr' field. Enter the latest dividend in the Future Value field. Precede it with a negative sign. It is also called a minus sign (-). At the bottom you would see a drop down list box. The value should be equal to the time interval at which the dividends were paid. If you recorded annual dividends leave it as annual. If you recorded quarterly dividends then select quarterly.

Finally press the Annual Interest button. The value obtained is the growth rate of your dividend.

Calculate dividend growth rates for as many stocks as you can using the technique described. Pick the stock with the best dividend growth rate. Combining this with more information like the analysis of the prospects of a company you can choose the best stock and optimize returns.

Next we are going to assess the value of a particular stock using an imprecise method. In other words it is just an estimate. Select the stock valuation calculator in your financial app. In Boachsoft Plata it is called the valuation calculator. You would need the average cost of capital. Use your search engine to search for average cost of capital. In the Dividend field enter the latest dividend. Enter the average cost of capital in the Required Return field. If you have already calculated the dividend growth rate then enter it in the Growth Rate field otherwise just enter 0. Press the button labeled Value of Asset to determine the value of your stock. Compare the value of stock to the share price. It should be close. If the value is less than the share price then this particular stock is overpriced. Do this for each of the stocks you intend to purchase.

Purchase stocks with good dividend growth rates that aren't overpriced.

These are just some of the ways you can use a financial app like Boachsoft Plata to optimize your stock purchases. If you consistently do this you will over time earn higher returns than people who don't.