"W" wrote in message news:...
The XIRR function seems to want an array of values where the first element
is always negative, and the rest are positive. So I model a stock
purchase
and sale as the first number being negative, and the sale being positive.
But what about if you have a short sale of stock, where you receive funds
before you buy and pay funds? That makes the first cell of the value
array
positive. XIRR freaks out and gives a #NUM! result. Why can't XIRR deal
with a positive followed by negatives? It is weird to have to distort
every
financial transaction to make it look like something XIRR can work with.

Is there any third party software the implements an XIRR that is more
powerful and can take more realistic inputs?

Correction on this, what happens is I get a negative XIRR. If I have a
short sale like:

1/27/2012 2/3/2012
$52 -$50

XIRR tells me it is an annualized return of -87.1% (NEGATIVE return, even
though it is net positive cash)

If I reverse this:

1/27/2012 2/3/2012
-$50 $52

XIRR tells me it is 673% annualized return. But at least it is positive.

Why does XIRR have problems dealing with positive cash up front followed by
negative cash flows?

--
W