How to say is the Trend up or Down in a comment?

[Jaffey]

I have a bunch of graphs where I've added a trend line and visually I can easily tell if the trend is up or down. however I'd like to add a comment section that says "Performance for client X is trending Up" or down, as the case may be. How can I tie a cell to the result of the trend line?

 

[mintjulep]

You don't. Or at least you don't by using the graphs.

You need to use the LINEST() function on the same data that you use to create the graphs.

This will return the coefficients m and b for the formula Y = mX + b that defines the same line that the "Show trend line" option on a plot gives you.

If m is positive, trend is increasing. If m is negative, trend is decreasing.

Note that linest is an array function.