Trending data

[asim]

Hello,

Is somebody able to help me work out how to create a formula which will look at a set of data and provide a result indicating whether the overall trend is upwards or downwards, and some other useful info such as:

i.e data set:
JAN=40% FEB=43% MAR=42% APR=47% MAY=50%

i.e. Result:
OVERALL TREND over 5 months=UP
JAN-MAY Movement = +x%
This is x% away from target

Is this possible in excel?
Look forward to your feedback.

[barrfly]

If you have the data set up in columns, then you can use the slope function to determine, well the slope. a positio slope would indicate an upward trend and a negative slope the oppisite. Make sure that the months (dates) are entered as dates and not as text.