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Moving Average

A way of smoothing out (i.e. removing the highs and lows) of a series of figures (usually shown as a graph). If you have, say, 12 months of sales figures and you decide on a moving average period of 3 months, you would add three months together, divide that by three and end up with an average for each month of the three month period. You would then plot that single figure in place of the original monthly points on your graph. A moving average is useful for displaying trends. See Normalize

Updated On: 04.04.01