Microsoft STOCKHISTORY allows users to visualise history of stocks and financial instruments in Excel

US-based software giant Microsoft has unveiled a new feature which provides historical performance data of companies and financial instruments on Excel. STOCKHISTORY is a feature designed to build on the flexibility of dynamic arrays and fills a gap in the Stocks data type by providing access to historical data.

Dynamic array formulas can automatically populate or 'spill' into neighbouring blank cells. This eliminates the need for legacy array formulas – Ctrl+Shift+Enter (CSE). STOCKHISTORY will make use of this function to display historical stock data. STOCKHISTORY makes it easier to track and recover changes to the stock data.

Additional benefits of using a Stocks data type includes allowing you to see which currency the prices represent. Excel users have been requesting for a function that makes it easy to pull stock prices into Excel spreadsheets. Microsoft had previously enabled refreshable quotes for stocks, bonds, funds, and currency pairs.

Microsoft said in a blog post, "We know that this wasn't enough to complete the goals you have for analyzing your portfolio in Excel. Getting the history of a financial instrument over time is crucial information you need. We are thrilled to be able to bring this functionality into Excel."