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.
17 Responses to “Custom Number Formats – Colors”
You are right, Chandoo. I was playing with the colour numbers last week and some of them don't appear different from each other. Others are totally different from yours.
@Duncan
Each version of Excel, post 2003, renders colors slightly differently
Different language versions may also have different default color palettes
Hello in french
excel 2010
colo1 = couleur1 = black
[couleur1]; [couleur2]; etc..
@Hui, thank you very much again for this great post.
However - under Excel 2007, Hungarian version your solution does not work with color names. I've tried both English and Hungarian names, but drops an error message "not valid formats"
Do you have any idea how to solve this issue?
thanks in advance
@Andras
Without a Hungarian version of Excel 2003 I don't think I can assist
Have you tried using the colour numbers? I couldn't get the names to work (despite using an english version of excel). but it did work with the numbers though. I left out the "u" and was easily able to produce burgundy using [color9]
Here a possible solution: find an English version of Excel, write there the formats using English names, then open the file in the Hungarian version and see the translation.
In Excel 2007 I can't get the colour names to work e.g Sea Green but the numbers do e.g color3 - colour3 does not work so I must bow to the country that has stolen my language (ha ha!)
Hey chandoo, nice Tip!
Wouldn't be easier just apply some conditional formatting for negative numbers and another for positive numbers? Or there's some cases that you can't do that?
Unfortunately the TEXT function doesn't color the cell as number formatting does.
Hi Hui,
Great post Sir, love the new way of formatting with color numbers.
I am using 2007, and it leads me to the last color number 56.
Thanks Hui.
[…] explains how to set up custom number formats with a wide array of […]
Thanks Hui - works a treat!
Thank you, very helpful.
Trying to figure out if it is possible to apply color only to a part of the cell?
E.g. I have a value formatted as Accounting with a currency symbol.
Those I find somewhat distracting though necessary. If I could make them less obtrusive by coloring them gray while the number would stay black, that would be great. Tried tinkering with the format string, but didn't get the desired result. Single color for complete cell value works, but coloring just part of it could not be achieved. Maybe somebody managed that?
Exactly what I was looking for - thank you!
colour in the Australian doesn't work - we have to go American and no problem.
I always thought is was 56 colours notice you have 57. Cool.
thanks
Analir Pisani
Customised Microsoft Office Training Specialist
Sydney - Australia
http://www.azsolutions.com.au
Thank You!