Moving average is frequently used to understand underlying trends and helps in forecasting. MACD or moving average convergence / divergence is probably the most used technical analysis tools in stock trading. It is fairly common in several businesses to use moving average of 3 month sales to understand how the trend is.
Today we will learn how you can calculate moving average and how average of latest 3 months can be calculated using excel formulas.
Calculate Moving Average
To calculate moving average, all you need is the good old AVERAGE excel function.
Assuming your data is in the range B1:B12,
- Just enter this formula in the cell D3
- =AVERAGE(B1:B3)
- And now copy the formula from D3 to the range D4 to D12 (remember, since you are calculating moving average of 3 months, you will only get 10 values; 12-3+1)
- That is all you need to calculate moving average.
Calculate Moving Average of Latest 3 Months Alone
Lets say you need to calculate the average of last 3 months at any point of time. That means when you enter the value for the next month, the average should be automatically adjusted.
We can do that using excel formulas AVERAGE, COUNT and OFFSET
First let us take a look at the formula and then we will understand how it works.
=AVERAGE(OFFSET(B4,COUNT(B4:B33)-3,0,3,1))
So what the heck the above formula is doing anyway?
- It is counting how many months are already entered – COUNT(B4:B33)
- Then it is offsetting count minus 3 cells from B4 and fetching 3 cells from there – OFFSET(B4,COUNT(B4:B33)-3,0,3,1). These are nothing but the latest 3 months.
- Finally it is passing this range to AVERAGE function to calculate the moving average of latest 3 months.
Your Home Work
Now that you have learned how to calculate moving average using Excel, here is your home work.
- Lets say you want the number of months used to calculate moving average to be configurable in the cell E1. ie when E1 is changed from 3 to 6, the moving average table should calculate moving average for 6 months at a time. How do you write the formulas then?
Don’t look at the comments, go and figure this out for yourself. If you cant find the answer, come back here and read the comments. Go!
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21 Responses to “How to Filter Odd or Even Rows only? [Quick Tips]”
Infact, instead of using =ISEVEN(B3), how about to use =ISEVEN(ROW())
So it takes away any chance of wrong referencing.
I like Daily Dose of Excel
I like it.
Just a heads up, you do need to have the Analysis ToolPak add-in activated to use the ISEVEN / ISODD functions. An alternative to ISEVEN would be:
=MOD(ROW(),2)=0
rather than use a formula, couldn't you enter "true" in first cell and "false" in the second and drag it down and than filter on true or false.
Just for clarification, is Ashish looking to filter by even or odd Characters or rows?
so many functions to learn!
Nice support by chandoo and team as a helpdesk. Give us more to learn and make us awesome. Always be helpful.......
In case you want to delete instead of filter,
IF your data is in Sheet1 column A
Put this in Sheet2 column A and drag down
=OFFSET(Sheet1!A$1,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)
(This is to delete even rows)
To delete odd rows :
=OFFSET(Sheet1!A$2,(ROWS($1:1)-1)*2,,)
If your numbered cells did not correspond to rows, the answer would be even simpler:
=MOD([cell address],2), then filter by 0 to see evens or 1 to see odds.
I sometimes do this using an even simpler method. I add a new column called "Sign" and put the value of 1 in the first row, say cell C2 if C1 contains the header. Then in C3 I put the formula =-1 * C2, which I copy and paste into the rest of the rows (so C4 has =-1 * C3 and so forth). Now I can just apply a filter and pick either +1 or -1 to see half the rows.
Another way, which works if I want three possibilities: in C2 I put the value 1, in C3 I put the value 2, in C4 I put the value 3, then in C5 I put the formula =C2 then I copy C5 and paste into all the remaining rows (so C6 gets =C3, C7 gets =C4, etc.). Now I can apply a filter and pick the value 1, 2, or 3 to see a third of the rows.
Extending this approach to more than 3 cases is left as an exercise for the reader.
Another way =MOD(ROW();2). In this case, must to choose betwen 1 and 0.
[...] How to Filter Even or Odd rows only [...]
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http://www.handycss.com/tips/odd-or-even-rows/
Thanks for the tip, it worked like magic, saved having to delete row by row in my database.
Thanks!
Thankssssssssssssssss
Hi Chandoo- First of all thanks for the trick. It helped me a lot. Here I have one more challenge. Having filtered the data based on odd. I want to paste data in another sheet adjacent to it. How can I do that?
For Example-
A 1 odd
B 3 odd
C 4 even
D 6 even
I have fileted the above data for odd and want to copy the "This is odd number" text in adjacent/next sheet here. How can I do that. After doing this my data should look like this
A 1 odd This is odd number
B 3 odd This is odd number
C 4 even
D 6 even
Hi! Could you please help me find a formula to filter by language?
Thank you!
Chandoo SIR,
I HAVE A DATA IN EXCEL ROWS LIKE BELOW IS THERE ANY FORMULA OR A WAY WHERE I CAN INSTRUCT I CAN MAKE CHANGES , MEANS I WANT TO WRITE ONLY , THE FIG IS FRESH, BUT IN BELOW ROW IT WILL AUTOMATICALLY TAKE THE SOME WORDS FROM FIGS AND MAKE IN PLURAL FORM , WHILE USING '' ARE'' LIKE BELOW
The fig is fresh - row 1
Figs are fresh - row 2
The Pomegranate is red - row 3
Pomegranates are red - row 4
=IF(EVEN(A1)=A1,"EVEN - do something","ODD - do something else") with iferron (for blank Cell)