I have always thought of percentage as a part of a whole amount. The amount
may be positive or negative but the percentage (part) of it would be
expressed as a positive amount and referred to as a gain or a loss but I
suppose if the person using the negative percentage understands how they are
using it, it is OK.

"Dean" wrote:

You normally measure your average growth in sales, as the ratio of this year
sales to last year sales, then subtract one. If your sales this year went
down, your growth is negative. For example, you sold $100,000 last year
but only $90,000 this year. Yes, you could just change your heading to the
loss in sales, and say it was +10%, but analysts generally don't do that.

Or, as a better example, my growth in sales over each of the last 5 years
was, +10%, -5%, +3%, +2%, and 0%.

Dean

"JLGWhiz" wrote in message
...
I am going to show my ignorance here and ask under what circumstance would
one have a negative percentage?

"Bob Phillips" wrote:

"IRR guess = " 0%;"IRR guess = " -0%

--

HTH

Bob Phillips

(replace xxxx in the email address with gmail if mailing direct)

"Dean" wrote in message
...
This is an easy one:

"IRR guess = "0%

I tried this as a custom format, but it doesn't work if the value is
negative. In fact, if the value is minus 3%, it ends up showing as
(with
the negative sign showing up in front of the label):

-IRR guess = 3%

What do I do to the custom formatting to allow it to show negative
values
as
negative?

Thanks!
Dean