Extraneous straight lines should not be on chart

[Joe Miller]

I plot the following kind of data on a scatter chart for dates 20070102 to 20140715 [seven years of daily data]
DATE UP+DN
20070102 0
20070103 -500
20070104 -1000
20070105 0
20070108 -500
20070109 -270
the resulting chart is attached.
each years worth of data plots in within a short span of the chart horizontal space allocated for a year and then a straight line completes the yearly plot as displayed on the graph.
each straight horizontal line should not be there.

any thoughts, advise, etc will be appreciated.

[Andy Pope]

Your date is not a date but a number which is why you get the jumps.

where you might have 2 adjacent data points between a year.
20071231, 20080101

If those were real data values excel would treat them as 39447 and 39448, with a gap of 1, as you would expect.
Because your data is simply numbers the gap between 20071231 and 20080101 is actually 8870. This causes the join line.

Convert you numbers to real dates.

[Joe Miller]

thanks andy, much appreciated.
cheers & peace