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Statistical function
COVARIANCE.P
Returns population covariance, the average of products of deviations for each pair of data points.
Rarely usedDifficulty 1400 · AdvancedUsage rank #336 of 520
When to use it
Population covariance, dividing by n. Use when the data is the whole population.
The shape of it
- Syntax
=COVARIANCE.P(array1, array2)
Worked examples
The shared dataset
=COVARIANCE.P({1,2,3,4},{2,4,6,9}) → 2.875
11.5 divided by 4.
A year of data
=COVARIANCE.P(A2:A13,B2:B13) → 3,510
Twelve months treated as the whole population.
With itself
=COVARIANCE.P(A2:A13,A2:A13) → 2,016,400
Covariance of a series with itself is VAR.P.
Worth knowing
- COVARIANCE.S for samples.
- Replaces COVAR.
- Pairs are dropped if either value is text or blank.
Where it goes wrong
- #N/A when the arrays differ in size.
- Units are the product of the two variables' units.
Related
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