title: SQL - calculate percentage increase in values of a numeric column
body: <p>I want to calculate some trends based on the values I get in my SQL database. Particularly I am interested in getting the % increase of the values in one column (the value should be negative in case the values have decreased)</p>
  
  <p>Can someone please advice how I should do this?</p>
  
  <p>I cannot use stored procedures.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks.</p>
  
  <p><b>
  My table has the following columns</p>
  
  <p>Date (numeric), Month (numeric), Orders (numeric), Price (real)</p>
  
  <p>I want to calculate the % of change in the number of orders received from one month to next. I also want the direction to be a consideration i.e. the value returned should be -ve in case the sales have decreased.
  </b></p>