Forum Discussion
Forecast returning negative values
Hello Excel community-thank you for your time and help. I did a forecast for population and the first figure it forecasted was decreased by almost 2%. Is that normal? There were 2 years in the his...
Alan - The https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Forecasting-functions-reference-897a2fe9-6595-4680-a0b0-93e0308d5f6e?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#_forecast.ets at the bottom of this message is a good place to start on your forecast math journey. The different forecast functions are described and there is a workbook with examples. I noodled with some existing data and I could change enough data points to force the first period of forecast data be less than the last period of actual but I didn't dig deep enough to understand the math (lunch break is over). Good Luck!
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Forecasting-functions-reference-897a2fe9-6595-4680-a0b0-93e0308d5f6e?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#_forecast.ets