Chart a moving average in Excel. Episode 770 will show you how.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel 97-2007 from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 377 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey. Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast. I’m Bill Jelen.
Well, I had a question in one of my seminars about creating a moving average.
The person was doing forecasting or something like that and said, you know our demand really kind of goes up and down, I'd like to see a moving average of that, and so a really easy way to do this is just to simply create the chart.
I'll create a line chart with the markers and click FINISH, and so you see we have a chart here.
It doesn't really seem to go in a straight line, it certainly seems like it's trending up, and what we can do is right click on that chart and say ADD TRENDLINE, and, in the ADD TRENDLINE, there's 6 different types of trendlines, including a MOVING AVERAGE.
So, we can create a 3-period moving average, click OK, and my only problem with the trendline is it always tends to come in a little bit too dark.
I always right click, FORMAT TRENDLINE, and change that back to maybe dotted, dotted, you know, in some lighter color to indicate that it's not really actual numbers, it's, you know, some sort of a calculation between the two, and so, here, we have sales, the blue line, and then the dotted line is a 3-period moving average, and you can see that that moving average is a bit straighter.
Well, there you have it, a quick way to create a moving average just by right clicking on the chart.
Thanks for stopping by.
We’ll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
Well, I had a question in one of my seminars about creating a moving average.
The person was doing forecasting or something like that and said, you know our demand really kind of goes up and down, I'd like to see a moving average of that, and so a really easy way to do this is just to simply create the chart.
I'll create a line chart with the markers and click FINISH, and so you see we have a chart here.
It doesn't really seem to go in a straight line, it certainly seems like it's trending up, and what we can do is right click on that chart and say ADD TRENDLINE, and, in the ADD TRENDLINE, there's 6 different types of trendlines, including a MOVING AVERAGE.
So, we can create a 3-period moving average, click OK, and my only problem with the trendline is it always tends to come in a little bit too dark.
I always right click, FORMAT TRENDLINE, and change that back to maybe dotted, dotted, you know, in some lighter color to indicate that it's not really actual numbers, it's, you know, some sort of a calculation between the two, and so, here, we have sales, the blue line, and then the dotted line is a 3-period moving average, and you can see that that moving average is a bit straighter.
Well, there you have it, a quick way to create a moving average just by right clicking on the chart.
Thanks for stopping by.
We’ll see you next time for another netcast from MrExcel.
