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Returns covariance, the average of the products of deviations for each data point pair. Use covariance to determine the relationship between two data sets. For example, you can examine whether greater income accompanies greater levels of education.

Syntax

COVAR(array1,array2)

Array1   is the first cell range of integers.

Array2   is the second cell range of integers.

Remarks

• The arguments must either be numbers or be names, arrays, or references that contain numbers.
• If an array or reference argument contains text, logical values, or empty cells, those values are ignored; however, cells with the value zero are included.
• If array1 and array2 have different numbers of data points, COVAR returns the #N/A error value.
• If either array1 or array2 is empty, COVAR returns the #DIV/0! error value.
• The covariance is:

  

  where x and y are the sample means AVERAGE(array1) and AVERAGE(array2), and n is the sample size.

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.