Forum Discussion
Percent Change with Mix of Negative and Positive Numbers
This is a pretty simple one -- I am trying to calculate the percent change between Column B and Column C. My problem is that there is a mix of positive and negative numbers so when I copy the formula down, it returns negative percent change when some of them should be positive. I cannot use the ABS() function with all of them because some of them really are negative changes. Is there a way to not have to correct them manually?
What exactly do you want? In row 2, you appear to calculate the change from B2 to C2, but in row 3, the change from C3 to B3...
Ideally, it would be the percent increase(or decrease) of Given Year (Column B) over the 3 Year Average (Column C)
Try this:
=(B2-C2)/ABS(C2)
Format the cell with the formula as a percentage, then fill down.
