By integrating services like Google Finance, Search in to spreadsheet functions, google docs has paved the way for endless possibilities.
Google spreadsheet function GoogleFinance() can be used to build stock portfolio tracker sheet that can fetch historical stock quotes to tell how your money is doing.
Click here to see the stock portfolio tracker sheet on Google docs.
Here is how you can create a simple stock / mutual fund / asset tracker application using Google docs:
1. Create the stock portfolio tracker table structure
A typical portfolio tracker has the following columns:
- Name of the asset – Stock name, MF name etc.
- # of units / shares held
- Purchase date
- Purchase price (will be fetched from GoogleFinance using formulas)
- Current price (also fetched from GoogleFinance)
- Gain / Loss % and values
2. The formulas to fetch current and historical quotes
Assuming the stock / company symbol as per the listing exchange is in cell B2 and purchase date is in cell C2, we can fetch historical stock price for that symbol on purchase date by the formula,
=GoogleFinance(B2,"price",C2)
But there is a problem with this formula as result is not single cell, but a 2×2 range as shown on the right. 
It returns date and price in 2 columns. We are only interested in the price of the stock on that date (ie bottom right cell in the returned range). We can fetch that value by using concatenate(), find() and mid() functions to parse out the required text. So the formula now becomes:
First in cell M2 we enter =concatenate(GoogleFinance(B2,"price",C2)) and then in the cell where the historical price is needed we enter =value(mid(M2,3+find(":",M2,1+find(":",M2)),99))
In order to fetch the current stock price we just need to enter =googlefinance(B2)
Note: Make sure that you use correct symbols for stocks / mutual funds and mm/dd/yyyy date formats for purchase date.
3. Finally add Gain / Loss calculations
This is a simple step where in we compute value on purchase and value today and then use them to compute Gain / Loss. We can modify the table to add some conditional formatting so that when a loss is made the numbers are in red color.
4. Enhancing the Portfolio Tracker
That is all. This is how we can create a simple stock portfolio tracker. But there are several interesting ways in which you can extend this.
- Add a spreadsheet form and use that to record stock purchases.
- Perform a thorough analysis of your holdings, research the companies, price trends etc. without leaving the spreadsheet.
- Get alerts when a price threshold is met, through RSS / email updates
- Add some graphs to see how / where your money going
Looking for a way to track stock / MF performance from excel, read this.
