PS....

On Jan 24, 11:52 am, I wrote:
If A1 is an old value and B1 is a new value,
typically you would do: =(B1-A1)/A1

More generally, really that is simply the percentage increase or
decrease from one number (A1) to another number (B1). It is entirely
up to you whether A1 is the old number and B1 is the new number, or A1
is the new number and B1 is the old number.


----- original posting -----

On Jan 24, 11:52*am, joeu2004 wrote:
On Jan 24, 10:39*am, mary bono <mary wrote:

I am trying to find out how to create a formula
that will help me finda drop *in a percentage of
a number or an increase of a percentage.

If A1 is an old value and B1 is a new value, typically you would do:

=(B1-A1)/A1

But if A1 and B1 might have opposite signs (one negative, the other
positive), you would do:

=(B1-A1)/abs(A1)

Note that that works when the signs are the same as well (both
negative or both positive).

In both case, the old value (A1) cannot be zero. *There is no "right"
answer when the old value is 0. *But one approach might be:

=if(A1=0, sign(B1), (B1-A1)/abs(A1))

That returns 100% or -100% for any change when the old value is zero.

In all cases, format the cell as Percentage with an appropriate number
of decimal places.