This method also treats positive and negative values symmetrically, and therefore is free of overall bias if the original numbers are positive or negative with equal probability. In addition, for most reasonable distributions of "y" values, the expected (average) value of the rounded numbers is essentially the same as that of the original numbers, even if the latter are all positive (or all negative). However, this rule will still introduce a negative bias for even numbers (including zero), and a positive bias for the odd ones.