How do you calculate CAGR when the value of the end term is negative?

Question

Trying to calculate CAGR = (end value/beginning value)^1/t - 1

Looking at company X's operating income from its income statement, it starts with a positive operating income and its end value is negative.

Company X's operating income:

Attempting to calculate the CAGR from 2018 to 2020 produces this calculation (-370.2/6.8)^1/2 - 1 however it results in an error

How can I calculate the annual growth rate over the two years after 2018?

Is there another way to denote the average annual change in values that equates to CAGR?

As you point out, CAGR would be valid only for positive numbers. It is therefore better applied to the total company value or revenue, rather than the profit/loss — Rahul Madhavan, Apr 03 '21 at 19:32
It provides an alternative to my problem. Average annual growth rate provides a slightly different answer to my analysis. A solution I found was to add an additional previous year to the CAGR calculation. Because you cannot take an even root of a negative, adding another year allowed me to use the cube root to get a CAGR. — Robbie Roman, Apr 04 '21 at 17:15

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