AVERAGING IN EXCEL

[Guest]

I am trying to understand how AVERAGING works in excel.

I have a chart that I need to get the averages of the
companies - See below.

This is the formula for the averages:

=AVERAGE(B2,B4:B7,B9:B12) The Average comes out to 9.0x

Why do I get a different number when I put in the formula
as =AVERAGE(B2:B12)
The Average comes out to 9.2x


A B
1
2 CHD 13.9x
3 CHTT 10.9x
4 PYX 10.4x
5 SMG 10.1x
6 ROV 9.2x
7 CENT 9.0x
8 ENR 9.0x
9 BTH 7.8x
10 RDEN 7.6x
11 BDK 7.4x
12 APN 5.7x

 

[lisa]

Well if your first formula you are taking the average of all the cells except B3 and B8 and in the second formula you are taking the average of all the cells. So obviously you are going to get a different answer. When you pick the numbers to take the average it is going to take an average of all the numbers in the grouping, not just the average of the groups. If you wanted the average of the groups B2, B4:B7, and B9:B12, then you would have to find the average of each and then average the averages, although I am not sure that will provide a correct answer.

 

[Tushar Mehta]

Why would you expect the formula =AVERAGE(B2,B4:B7,B9:B12) to yield
the same result as =AVERAGE(B2:B12)? The 2nd formula includes the
values in cells B3 and B8, which are excluded from the first.

--
Regards,

Tushar Mehta
www.tushar-mehta.com
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