But you told XIRR that you invested $110 and got back $100. So you lost
money. That's what XIRR is telling you.

Remember that to calculate investment returns, only the cash flow is
important. The transactions in between have no effect on the return.
Normally when you do a short sale, you need to put up 50% margin. Is that
what you did in this case? If so, you invested $55 (cash out of your
pocket), and received back $100. That's the transaction detail you need to
feed to XIRR.

Regards,
Fred.

"oukid" wrote in message
...
I am trying to calculate the annual growth rate for a short sale. I've
entered the first amount as a positive number (because it was cash coming
in)
and the second amount as a negative number (because it was cash going
out).
When I use XIRR I get a negative percentage as the annualized return.

As a simple example, if I enter 110 on the first date and -100 a year
later
XIRR gives me negative 9.1% as the annualized return. Since I have 10
more
at the end of the year, it seems that my return must be positive.

Am I misinterpreting this result or what?

Thanks for your help.