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XL2000: LINEST Or REGRESS Error Value Occurs When X-Values Are Dependent

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This article was previously published under Q209326

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Symptoms

In Microsoft Excel 2000, the LINEST, TREND, and REGRESS functions (the REGRESS function is available in the Analysis ToolPak add-in macro) may return a #NUM! error value.

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Cause

This behavior will occur if any set of known x-values is dependent on any other set of known x-values.

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More information

A set of known x-values is considered to be dependent on another set of known x-values when the first set is a multiple of the second set. For example, consider the following four sample number sets: 
   Set A       Set B          Set C          Set D
   ------------------------------------------------
    1           1               4              7
    2           2               8              9
    3           3              12             11
    4           4              16             13
    5           5              20             15
  • Set B is dependent on Set A (and A is dependent on B) because each element in Set B is equal to its corresponding element in Set A (Set A x 1=Set B).
  • Set C is dependent on Set A (and A is dependent on C) because each element in Set C is equal to four times its corresponding element in Set A (Set A x 4=Set C).
  • Set D is not dependent on any of the other sets (and the other sets are not dependent on Set D) because Set D is not an even multiple of any of the other sets.

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Keywords: KB209326, kbprb

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Article Info
Article ID : 209326
Revision : 5
Created on : 11/5/2003
Published on : 11/5/2003
Exists online : False
Views : 463