This is a guest post by Daniel Ferry of Excelhero.com.
Have you ever wanted to fetch live stock quotes from excel? In this post we will learn about how to get stock quotes for specified symbols using macros.
One method that has worked well for my clients can be implemented with just a few lines of VBA code. I call it the ActiveRange.
An ActiveRange is an area on a worksheet that you define by simply entering the range address in a configuration sheet. Once enabled, that range becomes live in the sense that if you add or change a stock symbol in the first column of the range, the range will automatically (and almost instantly) update. You can specify any of 84 information attributes to include as columns in the ActiveRange. This includes things such as Last Trade Price, EBITDA, Ask, Bid, P/E Ratio, etc. Whenever you add or change one of these attributes in the first row of the ActiveRange, the range will automatically update as well.
Sound interesting, useful?
In this post, you can learn how to use excel macros to fetch live stock quotes from Yahoo! Finance website. It is also going to be a crash course in VBA for the express purpose of learning how the ActiveRange method works so that you can use it yourself.
Download Excel Stock Quotes Macro:
Click here to download the excel stock quotes macro workbook. It will be much easier to follow this tutorial if you refer to the workbook.
Background – Understanding The Stock Quotes Problem:
The stock information for the ActiveRange will come from Yahoo Finance. A number of years ago, Yahoo created a useful interface to their stock data that allows anyone at anytime to enter a URL into a web browser and receive a CSV file containing current data on the stocks specified in the URL. That’s neat and simple.
But it gets a little more complicated when you get down to specifying which attributes you want to retrieve [information here]. Remember there are 84 discreet attributes available. Under the Yahoo system, each attribute has a short string Tag Code. All we need to do is to concatenate the string codes for each attribute we want and add the resulting string to the URL. We then need to figure out what to do with the CSV file that comes back.
Our VBA will take care of that and manage the ActiveRange. Excel includes the QueryTable as one of its core objects, and it is fully addressable from VBA. We will utilize it to retrieve the data we want and to write those data to the ActiveRange.
Before we start the coding we need to include two support sheets for the ActiveRange. The first is called “YF_Attribs”, and as the name implies is a list of the 84 attributes available on Yahoo Finance along with their Yahoo Finance Tag Codes. The second sheet is called, “arConfig_xxxx” where xxxx is the name of our sheet where the ActiveRange will reside. It contains some configurable information about the ActiveRange which our VBA will use.
All of the VBA code for this project will reside inside of the worksheet module for the sheet where we want our ActiveRange to be. For this tutorial, I called the sheet, “DEMO”.
Writing the Macros to Fetch Stock Quotes:
Press ALT-F11 on your keyboard, which will open the VBE. Double click on the DEMO sheet in the left pane. We will enter out code on the right. To begin with, enter these lines:
Private rnAR_Dest As Range
Private rnAR_Table As Range
Private stAR_ConfigSheetName As String
Always start a module with Option Explicit. It forces you to define your variable types, and will save you untold grief at debugging time. In VBA each variable can be one of a number of variable types, such as a Long or a String or a Double or a Range, etc. For right now, don’t worry too much about this – just follow along.
Sidebar on Variable Naming Conventions
Variable names must begin with a letter. Everyone and their brother seems to have a different method for naming variables. I like to prefix mine with context. The first couple of letters are in lower case and represent the type of the variable. This allows me to look at the variable anywhere it’s used and immediately know its type. In this project I’ve also prefaced the variables with “AR_” so that I know the variable is related to the ActiveRange implementation. In larger projects this would be useful. After the underscore, I include a description of what the variable is used for. That’s my method.
In the above code we have defined three variables and their types. Since these are defined at the top of a worksheet module, they will be available to each procedure that we define in this module. This is known as scope. In VBA, variables can have scope restricted to a procedure, to a module (as we have done above), or they can be global in scope and hence available to the entire program, regardless of module. Again we are putting all of the code for this project in the code module of the DEMO worksheet. Every worksheet has a code module. Code modules can also be added to a workbook that are not associated with any worksheet. UserForms can be added and they have code modules as well. Finally, a special type of code module, called a class module, can also be added. Any global variables would be available to procedures in all of these. However, it is good practice to always limit the scope of your variables to the level where you need them.
In that vein, notice that the three variables above are defined with the word Private. This specifically restricts their scope to this module.
Every worksheet module has the built-in capability of firing off a bit of code in response to a change in any of the sheet’s cell values. This is called the Worksheet_Change event. If we select Worksheet from the combo box at the top and Change in the other combo box, the VBE will kindly define for us a new procedure in this module. It will look like this:
End Sub
Notice that by default this procedure is defined as Private. This is good and as a result the procedure will not show up as a macro. Notice the word Target near the end of the first line. This represents the range that has been changed. Place code between these two lines so that the entire procedure now looks like this:
The Heart of our Excel Stock Quotes Code – Worksheet_Change()
ActivateRange
If Worksheets(stAR_ConfigSheetName).[ar_enabled] Then
If Intersect(Target, rnAR_Dest) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
If Target.Column <> rnAR_Dest.Column And Target.Row <> rnAR_Dest.Row Then
PostProcessActiveRange
Exit Sub
End If
ActiveRangeResponse
End If
End Sub
That may look like a handful but it’s really rather simple. Let’s step through it. The first line is ActivateRange. This is the name of another sub-procedure that will be defined in a moment. This line just directs the program to run that sub, which provides values to the three variables we defined at the top. Again, since those variables were defined at the top of the module, their values will be available to all procedures in the module. The ActivateRange procedure gives them values.
Next we see this odd looking fellow:
If Intersect(Target, rnAR_Dest) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
All this does is check to see if the Target (the cell that was changed on the worksheet) is part of our ActiveRange. If it is the procedure continues. If it’s not, the procedure is exited.
The next line checks to see if the cell that was changed is in the first column or first row of the ActiveRange. If it is, the post processing is skipped. If the change is any other part of the ActiveRange, another sub-procedure (defined below) is run to do some post processing of the retrieved data, and then exits this procedure.
If the cell that changed was in the first column or the first row, the program runs another sub-procedure, called ActiveRangeResponse, which is also defined below. ActiveRangeResponse builds the URL for YF, deletes any previous QueryTables related to the ActiveRange, and creates a new QueryTable as specified in our configuration sheet.
That’s it. The heart of the whole program resides here in the Worksheet_Change event procedure. It relies on a number of other subprocedures, but this is the whole program. When a change is made in the ActiveRange’s first column (stock symbols) or its first row (stock attributes), ActiveRangeResponse runs and our ActiveRange is updated.
Understanding other sub-procedures that help us get the stock quotes:
So let’s look at those supporting subprocedures. The first is ActivateRange:
stAR_ConfigSheetName = “arConfig_” & Me.Name
Set rnAR_Dest = Me.Range(Worksheets(stAR_ConfigSheetName).[ar_range].Value)
Set rnAR_Table = rnAR_Dest.Resize(1, 1).Offset(1, 1)
Worksheets(stAR_ConfigSheetName).[ar_YFAttributes] = GetCurrentYahooFinancialAttributeTags
End Sub
Again, all this does is give values to our three module level variables. In addition it builds the concatenated string of YF Tag Codes required for the URL. It does this by calling a function that I’ve defined at the very bottom of the module, called GetCurrentYahooFinancialAttributeTags.
The next subprocedure is ActiveRangeResponse:
Dim vArr As Variant
Dim stCnx As String
Const YAHOO_FINANCE_URL = “http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=[SYMBOLS]&f=[ATTRIBUTES]”
vArr = Application.Transpose(rnAR_Dest.Resize(rnAR_Dest.Rows.Count – 1, 1).Offset(1))
stCnx = Replace(YAHOO_FINANCE_URL, “[SYMBOLS]”, Replace(WorksheetFunction.Trim(Join(vArr)), ” “, “+”))
stCnx = Replace(stCnx, “[ATTRIBUTES]”, Worksheets(stAR_ConfigSheetName).[ar_YFAttributes])
AddQueryTable rnAR_Table.Resize(UBound(vArr)), “URL;” & stCnx
End Sub
Notice that here we have variables defined at the top of this procedure and consequently their scope is limited to this procedure only. This means that we could have the same variable names defined in other procedures but those variables would not be related to these and would have completely different values.
Next notice that we have defined a constant. This is good practice, as it forces us to specify what the constant value is by naming the constant. I could have just used the value where I later use the constant, but then the question arises as to what is this value and where did it come from. Here I have named the value, YAHOO_FINANCE_URL, removing all doubt as to its purpose.
The next line is this:
vArr = Application.Transpose(rnAR_Dest.Resize(rnAR_Dest.Rows.Count - 1, 1).Offset(1))
and it deserves some explanation. Let me back up by saying that whenever we write or read multiple cells from a worksheet we should always try to do it in one go, rather than one cell at a time. The more cells involved the more important this is. Otherwise we pay a massive penalty in processing time. One of the best optimization techniques available is to replace code that loops through cell reads/writes and replace it with code that reads/writes all the cells at once. It can literally be hundreds to thousands of times faster.
Here we are interested in getting the list of all of the stock symbols in the first column of the ActiveRange. So how do we get them in one shot? We use something called a variant array. Notice that we defined vArr at the top of this procedure. A variant array is a special kind of variable that holds a list of values and it DOES NOT CARE what variable types those values are. This is important when retrieving data from a sheet because the data could be numbers, text, Boolean (True or False), etc. Variants are powerful, but they are much slower than other variable types, such as a Long for numeric data for example. However, in the case of retrieving or writing large chunks of data from/to a sheet the slight penalty of the variant is dwarfed by the massive increase in the speed of data transfer.
It’s very simple to retrieve range data (regardless of the size) into a variant array. All you do is:
v = range
where v is defined as a variant and range is any VBA reference to a worksheet range. And magically all of the values in that range are now in v. Note that v is not connected to the range. A change in any of v’s values does not propogate back to the range, and likewise a change to the range does not make it’s way to v all by itself. v will ALWAYS be a two-demensional array. The first dimension is the index of the rows, the second dimension is the index of the columns. So v(1,1) will refer to the value that came from the top left cell in the range. v(6,9) will hold the value that came from the cell in the range at row 6 and column 9.
For most circumstances this two-dimensional format is fine. But we are only retrieving one column of stock symbols. The procedure will still give us a two-dimensional array, with the column dimension being only 1 element wide. This is a shame because VBA has a wonderful function called Join that allows you in one step (no loop) to concatenate every element of an array into a string. You can even specify a custom string to delimit (go in-between) each element in the output string. The problem is that Join only works on single dimensioned arrays 🙁
But there’s always a way, right? We can use the Application.Transpose method on the 2-D array and presto we get a 1-D array. The rest of the line just specifies what range (the stock symbols) to grab.
The next two lines are:
stCnx = Replace(YAHOO_FINANCE_URL, "[SYMBOLS]", Replace(WorksheetFunction.Trim(Join(vArr)), " ", "+"))
stCnx = Replace(stCnx, "[ATTRIBUTES]", Worksheets(stAR_ConfigSheetName).[ar_YFAttributes])
Again a handful, but all we are doing here is replacing the monikers, [SYMBOLS] and [ATTRIBUTES] in the YAHOO_FINANCE_URL constant with the list of stock symbols (delimited by a plus sign) and the string of attributes.
In the final line of the procedure:
AddQueryTable rnAR_Table.Resize(UBound(vArr)), "URL;" & stCnx
we are running another subprocedure called, AddQueryTable and we are telling it where to place the new QueryTable and providing the connection string for the QueryTable, which in this case is the YF URL that we just built.
Nothing unusual happens in the AddQueryTable sub. It just deletes any existing AR related QueryTables and adds the new one according to the options in the configuration sheet.
The PostProcessActiveRange sub is interesting:
If rnAR_Dest.Columns.Count > 2 Then
Application.DisplayAlerts = False
rnAR_Table.Resize(rnAR_Dest.Rows.Count).TextToColumns Destination:=rnAR_Table, DataType:=xlDelimited, Comma:=True
Application.DisplayAlerts = True
Worksheets(stAR_ConfigSheetName).[ar_LocalTimeLastUpdate] = Now
End If
End Sub
Processing Yahoo Finance Output using Query Table & Text-Import Utility:
As mentioned before the data from YF comes back as a CSV file. The QueryTable dumps this into one column. If you were only retrieving one attribute for each stock this would be fine as is. However, two or more attributes is going to result in unwanted commas and multiple attribute values squished into the first column of the QueryTable output. Unfortunately this is poor design by Microsoft, especially when you consider that the QueryTable does not behave like this when it is retrieving SQL data or opening a Text file from disk. You can actually specify this operation to be a text file and it will properly spread the output over all of the columns. To do so, you specify the disk location as being the URL of the YF CSV file, but as Murphy would have it, it’s unbelievably slow and pops up a status dialog as it slowly retrieving the CSV. Using the URL instruction instead of the TEXT instruction at the beginning of the connection string is incredibly fast in comparison, but dumps all of the data into the first column.
So what to do? We’ll just employ Excel’s built-in TextToColumns capability and bam, our data is where we want it.
Our finalized stock quotes fetcher worksheet should look like this:
Download Excel Stock Quotes Macro:
Click here to download the excel stock quotes macro workbook. It will be much easier to follow this tutorial if you refer to the workbook.
Final Thoughts on Excel Stock Quotes
The ActiveRange technique is quite versatile. It can be implemented with other data sources such as SQL, or even lookups to other Excel files, or websites.
In this example it provides a nice way to easily track whatever stocks you may have interest in and up to 84 different attributes of those stocks. You can enable and disable the activeness of the ActiveRange on the fly. You can set the AR to AutoRefresh the data at periods that you set or to not refresh at all.
This is a basic implementation. For example, changing the AutoRefresh setting will have no effect until a new QueryTable is built. That won’t happen until you also add or change a stock symbol or add or change an attribute. An easy enhancement would be to add a little code to the arConfig_DEMO code module to respond to changes to the ar_AutoRefresh named range cell.
Another enhancement would be to eliminate the slight flicker of the update by moving the QueryTable destination to the arConfig_DEMO and then doing the TextToColumns with the destination set to the DEMO sheet. In an effort to simplify this tutorial I have left these easy enhancements as an exercise for you to implement.
Have a question or doubt? Please Ask
Do you have any questions or doubts on the above technique? Have you used ActiveRange or similar implementations earlier? What is your experience? Please share your thoughts / questions using comments.
I read Chandoo.org regularly and will be monitoring the post for questions. But you can also reach me at my blog:
Further References & Help on Excel Stock Quotes [Added by Chandoo]
- Fetching Stock Quotes using Research Pane
- Stock Portfolio Tracker using Google Docs
- QueryTable Object Model & Properties
- Using QueryTable to Generate Dynamic Reports
- Yahoo Finance API Documentation & Example
Excel Hero is dedicated to expanding your notion of what is possible in MS Excel and to inspiring you to become an Excel Hero at your workplace. It has many articles and sample workbooks on advanced Excel development and advanced Excel charting.
32 Responses to “More than 3 Conditional Formats in Excel”
Dude,
Long time... whts up , I see that urs is the only business which is posting a "Excel" lent growth in this recessionary market....
Still alive ... so you will be able to reach me if make an attempt... 🙂
V E R Y N I C E !!!!
Hi Chandoo.
When I use your macro in my file, I keep getting a Compile Error because the "cell" variable is not defined.
Any suggestions?
@Lincoln: Did you have "option explicit" on?
I am sorry, I didn't define the cell variable.
you can add this line to the code just below the line "dim i"
dim cellLet me know if you still get this error...
Ah. I've simply declared cell as a range.
All good now
Noob at work.
Thanks for the article. Very helpful. 🙂
very, very helpful. I didn't know what "define named ranges" meant. one of my colleagues figured it out. I suggest you add the instruction "go to menu - insert/name/define and then make sure the cells at the bottom of the box change to reflect new values if you redefine the range." thanks.
Quite Intresting. If anyone could help. I am trying to do something like this but i want to define values and colours of the value in a range of cells ( Similiar) but i want the other cells to change colour when the value is same as the range defined. ANy help. I want instantaneous( Like conditional formatting) not like running macro.
@Jahabar: Welcome to PHD and thanks for the comments.
If your source range and target range have same dimensions and source range has 4 different formats (conditional formatting limitation, unless you are using excel 2007) you can do this. If you have more than 4 formats then you may have to use VBA (and create an event like worksheet_change and monitor the range).
Let me know if you come across a simple non-vba solution for this. 🙂
very nice post...
May I suggest a little modification of the code?
Adding "Application.ScreenUpdating = False" at the beggining of the macro and "Application.ScreenUpdating = True" at the end speeds up significantly the whole procedure. As well as omitting "Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks:=False, Transpose:=False".
Not a big deal in this example, but when formatting a larger range of cells, the difference is marked. I've tried to format the number 1457 of cells and the formatting was done 11 seconds faster. :-O
[...] you can overcome the conditional formatting limitation using VBA macros (again, if you are new to excel, you may want to wait few weeks before plunging in to [...]
Hi Chandoo
Thanks for this macro. I have done few changes to this macro to suit my needs. I had removed the defined names data2use and conditions2use to ActiveWindow.RangeSelection.Address
This way I can select the cells that require conditional formatting and then run the macro.
Kind Regards,
Vasanth
Chandoo, I am using 2007. I noticed the conditional formatting options are different - and they have some built in funtictions for stop light displays, and other dashboard type elements. My question is this, I need to display more colors in the stop light than the standard 3. The World Health Org (WHO) has a Pandemic Flu alert level between 0-6, so i wanted to drive a sharepoint dashboard using excel based on 7 distinct levels. Suggestions?
@ASM: very good idea. you can use font based symbols instead of excel traffic light icons to achieve this. the character "=" becomes a small circle when you change the font to "webdings". So you just need to insert a bunch of = signs and use conditional formatting to change the font color. If you need to combine numbers with symbols, then you can use 2 columns instead of one and format them accordingly. Let me know if you need some more help with this.
Also, if possible, share with us your dashboard when it is ready.
[...] Once we calculate values for all team members using the above formula, we can apply conditional formatting to make the heat map. In Excel 2007, this is one step. In earlier versions of excel, you need to specify 3 conditions to make the heatmap look hot enough or use a macro to get over the 3 conditional formats limitation. [...]
Chandoo,
Why do you use the "conditions2use" since you can change the VBA and replace "conditions2use" with "data2use" and you won't have to create a zone for conditional formating equal to the data zone.
The Data will be formated according the "formats2use". Just one thing, if you plan to have some "0" on your data zone, they will be formated like the first cell above your "formats2use" (the green cell with "Formats" inside in your exemple".
That's why you should leave a white empty cell above the first cell of the "formats2use" zone.
Regards,
Pitichat
Seeing as no one has posted what they actually might use something like this for here's my 2cents;
I used the same concepts to build a heatmap of a casino gaming floor, with each populated cell representing a gaming machine (Slot Machine), some simple metric bucketing to determine different shades for the cells, user selectable colours, ability to pick a 'machine' (click on a cell) and repaint the 'floor' showing only machines with similar charateristics, select a value range and repaint the 'floor' showing only the 'machines' within the value range. Users could switch between metrics and repaint the the floor.
It took a while to put together, but once in use was rolled out to four casinos and used for 4 years. It provided a portable (i.e. no custom software), easy to understand way to manage product from individual machine to groups / classes of product and made it very easy to see how products were performing in geographic relation to each other (something that tables & graphs can't easily do)
Needless to say it "wowed" many people who only saw Excel as a tool for managing numbers and table based reports
Being excel just about any user could maintain spreadsheet.
@ Justin B - Hey Justin, that counds AWESOME! Can I get a copy of the casino tracker, I work within a similar industry and would love to see how you've constructed it.
Also, from using this heatmap, I think I'm getting confused. To make the map change color, I thought you had to change the DATA2USE cells, but I see it only changes if you change the vales of thew cells within the CONDITIONS2USE cells. Am I thinking this wrong?????
Thanks all, this is REALLY making my life easier!!
Hi Dude,
Thanks for this very useful macro. That was very helpful.
Kepp up the good work.
Cheers.
Explanation like yours is so important to everyone that want to learn more and more in Excel. Thanks a lot. You are the man ! 🙂
[...] http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/10/14/more-than-3-conditional-formats-in-excel/ [...]
Chandoo,
If I wanted to replace the numbers 1-9 with text A-I, what would I need to do to the macro to make it work correctly?
Thanks!
@Lee
If the numbers are alone and not part of larger numbers >10 or with text you can simply use this formula
=CHAR(A1+64)Change A1 to your cell
Copy Down/Across as required
Then select the new cells and copy/paste as Values over themselves.
I'm trying to do a drop down list that will allow me to select a color and when I select that color it will change my cell to that color. i cannot use contion formating because I have 5 colors. Can you help me with this?
thanks
This tool was great. Can you please suggest a way to include conditions like if value in a cell lies in a range color some other cell red.
What do I need to change in the programing if I have a mix of numbers and letters. Example; 5003, 2B01, W005, 1020. I think the problem is the CInt code but I'm not sure.
EXCELlent - was able to use your macro with no problems. Found that modifying it to use the DATA2USE range achived the same result as using the condition2use range. If the two ranges were equal, your way allows the data range to have completely different values and still have the same color format at the end.
My data is a little different
I have an irregular shaped building with students in it.
I have a list of students assigned to the rooms with the courses they are on
and a color code for the courses
would there be a way of using indirect to translate the student names to color code the rooms to what courses they are on?
[...] hi Check below link More than 3 Conditional Formats in Microsoft Excel - How to? | Chandoo.org - Learn Microsoft Excel O... [...]
The ability to conditional format a range of cells based on criteria in a different, but matching for size, range of cells is exactly what I've been looking for. Unfortunately the macro falls over at the line conditions (i) = CInt (cell.value). I have specified the 3 rangenames, working in excel 2003 but cannot get it to work. Any ideas. I've checked rangenames several times (0-16 being used) but no luck. Thanks
Hello you also can use this code to force ur worksheet to run with more then on condition.
in this case the condition = case like in example if u want to format something between of the range 0 to 100 for a color
Set I = Intersect(Target, Range("B2:B8")) <-- thatch the rage u want to work with just set it up for range of cell u want to use to format
the second formula will show u Interior color nr index just time it and when u format the cell with a color it will show nr in the cell
enjoy
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)Set I = Intersect(Target, Range("B2:B8"))
If Not I Is Nothing Then
Select Case Target
Case 0 To 100: NewColor = 37 ' light blue
Case 101 To 200: NewColor = 46 ' orange
Case 201 To 300: NewColor = 12 ' dark yellow
Case 301 To 400: NewColor = 10 ' green
Case 401 To 600: NewColor = 3 ' red
Case 601 To 1000: NewColor = 20 ' lighter blue
End Select
Target.Interior.ColorIndex = NewColor
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
Range("F1:F1") = Range("F1:F1").Interior.ColorIndex
End Sub
Hi Chandoo,
I tried to add the "More than 3 conditional formats for Excel" VBA macro
to my Excel 2008 for Mac and it didn't work. Would this VBA macro work
with Excel 2011 for Mac? Does it have to be a certain version: Student,
Home & Office, or Standard?
Thanks for your help.
Tom
[…] here is one vba macro that might be better if need lots of cases http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/10/14/more-than-3-conditional-formats-in-excel/ […]