# How to calculate “more precise” average? Giving less importance to extreme values

There's live feed from ~30 exchanges http://www.coinparator.com/live/BTC/USD/ I'm calculating and displaying average of all prices (on the top, orange box).

Problem is, that usually one or two exchanges have too extreme prices (too low, too high). While 28 exchanges are trading around \$9500, one or two exchanges are trading at \$7000. Which will affect my average result.

Is there some mathematics formula, that would give less importance to values, that are too extreme?

• If there are exchanges at 7000 and 9500, you shouldn't be averaging, you should be arbitraging. Buy at the 7000 exchange and sell at 9500. – Ross Millikan Nov 27 '17 at 4:06

• Your suggestion produces a 25% trimmed mean (i.e. throw out smallest 25% and largest 25% of the data). One could also compute an $x\%$ trimmed mean, where $x\in [0,50)$. A 0% trimmed mean is just the usual mean, and a 50% trimmed mean (really, ($50-\varepsilon$)% is just the median. Both 5% and 10% trimmed means seem to be fairly common in applications (says the pure math guy). – Xander Henderson Nov 27 '17 at 5:06