How Does Excel Help Traders?

sulong · Jul 4, 2006

Quote from JMowery1987:

but I don't know about Office, I use OpenOffice on Linux though and like it.

Yeah, I use Ooo on XP. But my reasons are that I see no sense in buying something I can get for free.

ess1096 · Jul 4, 2006

Actually, I already have Excel. I just don't know how to use it to it's potential.

Quote from sulong:

Ess,
Don't go out of your way to buy excel. You can download compatible software for free at openoffice.org
If you have a computer you better start learning about spreadsheets.

ES,
do you have âoffice12â yet?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/office/BusinessIntelligenceFS.mspx

ElectricSavant · Jul 4, 2006

I can't get anything uploaded to it...(maybe my worksheets are too complicated?)

I will try again tomorrow...

Thanks!

Quote from slacker:

Have you looked at http://spreadsheet.google.com?

Just released last month but not bad.

Moving some trade tracking stuff there so it is always backed up and available everywhere I go.... Cannot replace desktop Excel for strategies but for tracking and building small 'calculators' it looks good.

Good luck

iagree · Jul 5, 2006

So is there a book or something that teaches traders how to code in excel just for traders?

trendmomentum · Jul 5, 2006

Quote from iagree:

So is there a book or something that teaches traders how to code in excel just for traders?

Ah ha!, isee where iagree (8 posts) is going.

The leading (expecting) answer would be:

There are tons of books out there showing how to code in VB/VBA, but they are way too technical. Wouldn't it be nice to have a simple book written by traders for traders that focuses on programming of trading strategies in Excel ( if the strategies are real and working even better )?

See http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71324&highlight=programming

But I guess iagree already knew that!

glenjohnson · Jul 5, 2006

yes it would be nice.

GTS · Jul 5, 2006

Quote from ess1096:

Sorry if this sound so very ignorant. I noticed that Excel seems to be everywhere that you find stock lists, including here at ET. I also notice that the stock lists on investors.com such as the IBD 100 etc., are downloadable to Excel.

I know Excel is a spreadsheet program (that I don't know how to use), but what is it about Excel that gives the trader any advantage?

You're not familiar with this Excel function? Its a must-have for any trader:

FuturePrice

Returns the future price of a security given its current price and a date in the future

If this function is not available, and returns the #NAME? error, install and load the Security Analysis ToolPak add-in.

Syntax

FUTUREPRICE(symbol,date)

Important Dates should be entered by using the DATE function, or as results of other formulas or functions. For example, use DATE(2008,5,23) for the 23rd day of May, 2008. Problems can occur if dates are entered as text.

Symbol is the security's symbol.

Date is the date in the future to be predicted.

Nana Trader · Jul 5, 2006

Quote from rosy:

it basically lets people who do not know how to (or want to) write code develop something useful. trading desks are filled with the nastiest excel apps you can imagine.

You need to know how to write codes and learning it for use in trading is much harder than wealthlab, Easylanguage , amibroker...if you are beginner

daveb351 · Jul 5, 2006

I find these sites helpful to my excel trading:

http://ta-lib.org/ & http://www.esquotes.com/

Susukino · Jul 5, 2006

Quote from ess1096:
I know Excel is a spreadsheet program (that I don't know how to use), but what is it about Excel that gives the trader any advantage?

In itself, Excel does not give you an advantage. Excel is just a tool, so how you use it and how effectively you use it is up to you.

Spreadsheet programs, like Excel, allow you to do your sums very easily, everything from simple addition to complicated statistics. It's like a notepad for figures. If you plan to do any trading or investment you should first learn how to use a spreadsheet. At the very least it will get you in the right mindset for dealing with time series data, visualising that data and analysing changes in that data.

I have to say that when I was a student, I never used spreadsheets; I was mystified as to why people might ever need them. Now that I work for my living Excel is permanently open on my PC and I simply could not work without it (or a similar application). I use it to model company earnings and tons of other things. In a trading perspective it would be useful for tracking your trades and analysing your performance. It can also be used to build custom applications; you're unlikely to need to know much about that for a while.

Go to www.openoffice.org and download the Calc application (or the whole suite). Download some share price data from somewhere (Yahoo?) and start playing with it in Calc. Try formatting data, inserting percent changes or moving averages, creating charts and so on. You'll learn. Calc is similar to Excel and an acceptable substitute. If you have spare cash, just buy Excel or Microsoft Office as there's more support and information for them than for Calc.

Suss