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Excel MAX Practice Question: A shop made a loss every month (B2:B7 show profit as negative numbers). Find…

By Rinkesh Shah, founder of Cellgrids.

The question

A shop made a loss every month (B2:B7 show profit as negative numbers). Find the best month's result, which is the smallest loss. Put it in D2.

The data

ABCD
1MonthProfitResult
2Jan-5200?
3Feb-3100
4Mar-4800
5Apr-2700
6May-3900
7Jun-6100

The yellow cell is where your answer goes.

Show answer

Answer in D2: -2700

How it works

Explanation: With negative numbers, MAX gives the one closest to zero.
Syntax: =MAX(B2:B7)
The closest to zero is -2700.

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MAX syntax

=MAX(number1, [number2], ...)

Returns the largest number in a set. MAX is used in data analysis work to summarize or test patterns across a data set. Full MAX guide.

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