When your dashboard doesn't have enough data, what do you show?

Something I changed my mind about while building a finance app for freelancers.

Say someone made $2,000 last month and $0 this month. The math says -100%. A big red number.

It's correct and it's still misleading. For a freelancer, an empty month often just means a payment is late. So in my app, when a month is at zero, that comparison doesn't show at all. Same with small samples: if there isn't enough history to say something, the screen says that instead of guessing.

The rule I ended up with:

If I can't defend a number to the user's face, it doesn't go on the screen.

It has a cost. Dashboards look emptier, and empty looks unfinished. I still don't know exactly where the line is.

How do you handle this in your products? Hide weak numbers, show them with a warning, or show them anyway?