irr

I

irrquestion

I am trying to calculate the IRR for a dataset and wanted to know:
1) What is the difference between DIV0 and Num errors
2) Is there any other way to find the multiple solutions without having to
keep guessing (when i changed the guess for the ones with num errors, I got
DIV0s)

I already tried reading the excel help on irr but it wasn't that helpful.

Thanks.
 
F

Fred Smith

1. Can't help you with a DIV0 error, because I've never seen it with IRR. The
Num error means that IRR can't find a solution within 20 tries. As it says in
Help, you need to give it a better guess in order to get an answer.

2. Not without a macro. Besides, what good would it be? Having multiple
solutions is the same as having no solution -- none of them are of any value.

If it helps, I have calculated IRR thousands of times in real life situations.
The algorithm that IRR uses converges *very* quickly. I've seen it converge from
the default of 10% to the actual value of -76% in 7 tries. If IRR can't converge
within 20 times, you have some very esoteric data. It may be good for a research
paper, but I'll bet it hasn't happened in real life.
 
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