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TIL you actually can enable circular references in Excel. Though I struggle to see the practical usefulness except for a few edge cases.
by ineedasername 5y ago
TIL you actually can enable circular references in Excel. Though I struggle to see the practical usefulness except for a few edge cases.
- jkaptur 5y agoHow else would you implement Newton’s method? ;)
- dsizzle 5y agoI'm reminded of solving Laplace's equation in Excel. It makes some cool animations too https://www.av8n.com/physics/laplace.htm https://www.av8n.com/physics/laplace.htm
- sl8r 5y agoInterestingly, they’re actually used all the time in LBO models. Because the default is to sweep all FCF to pay down debt, but then the interest expense is dependent on FCF, which depends on the interest expense… Sort of a trivial example b/c you could solve it by being more granular with time periods, but in practice people just use the circular ref.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 5y agoI've also seen it basterdize into running a loop for a monte carlo sim instead of using a VBA macro. Genius and stupid all at the same time.