If you do put the gain/loss in currency in the same cell as the gain/
loss percentage, eg like:

-$263.80 (-13%)

then this combination would be a text value, and your custom
formatting will have no effect on it. So, you need to decide what
would be more important - separate cells with custom formatting or
combined cells all in black.

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Jan 20, 5:46*pm, StargateFan
wrote:
On Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:10:38 -0500, StargateFan

wrote:

[snip]

[snip] ... First off, I have an
income in E2 of $2,029.12 and in E4 of $1,765.28. *When subtracted
with formula in E5 of =SUM(E2-E4), I get $263.84, which numerically is
fine. *However, since it's income, this $263.84 actually represents a
loss so it should be showing as a negative.

Then, in E6 formatted as percentage, I figured out that =(E4-E2)/E2
shows the difference in those amounts as a percentage, -13%, which is
perfect.

My question is how do I get output in E5 of this type (in red), which
actually combines both and also correctly shows as negative or
positive income gain/loss:

-$263.8 (-13% income loss/or gain as case may be)

[snip]

Just for future reference, after seeing what Jim Cone advised, I
played around with the separate percentage cell to see if I could get
different outputs depending on whether gain or loss and this
approached the right output:

=(E4-E2)/E2
with custom formatting of:
0%;[Red]-0%" income loss"

Unlike when using something similar in currency, it didn't go to black
when a positive number, but the text did disappear with a positive
number.

Anyway, good for adding text to the output. *This doesn't deal with
putting both the gain/loss in currency along with gain/loss in
percentage in same cell but good for future reference.