Expert: Sherman D. - 2/19/2005

Question
Are people correct when describing a percentafe of increase to use a percentage larger than 100%? For example, i bought a share of stock at $100 and sold it for $250.00, therore I had a 150% increase in my investment.  

Answer
((x - y)/y) * 100

x = finish value
y = initial value

((250 - 100)/100) * 100 = 1.5 * 100 = 150% increase

but this only works like that because you have an initial value of 100, if it had been any other value, it wouldn't had worked out so easily, for example, if the initial value was 150 instead of 100, then it would had been

((250 - 150)/150) * 100 = (100/150) * 100 = .6667 * 100 = 66.67%