I use a third-party stock quote feed and I link that to Excel via DDE
links. The formula for the link is:

=bc|cot!GOOG.ult

where GOOG is the stock symbol (in this example, Google). If the stock
is always the same, the formula works fine. But I'd like to have a
flexible formula where I could change the stock symbol on a separate
cell without retyping the whole formula.

My first idea was to use CONCATENATE("=bc|cot!"; A1; ".ult"), where A1
is the cell where the stock symbol would go. But concatenate just
produces a text string in that cell, without actually creating a
formula.

To solve this problem is created a macro that inserts the concatenated
text as a formula in the cell: Cell.Value = CONCATENATE("=bc|cot!";
A1; ".ult"). This solution works, but I was really looking for a direct
formula link, whereby I would change the symbol on one cell and the
correct quote was displayed in the other cell without the need of
rebuilding the formula.

Does anyone have an idea?