Manipulating a trend

This graph shows sales figures for the ice cream factory you took over eight years ago. The wavy shape reflects that people buy much more ice cream in the summer.

There is an unmistakeable decline over eight years, as shown by the trend line or by comparing the first and last months.

What will you tell the press and the shareholders? You cannot change the data, but you can change how they are summarised.

Click anywhere on the graph to censor the data so that the trend is only calculated from that month.

Chief Executive's statement:

Express as:
absolute change
trend