A subset of my data starts out the same in a text column, Column A.
The last part of the text is different. Nevertheless, I want to
run a SUMPRODUCT function against columns that meet that
criterion in Column A. That is, for lines where Column A starts
out "XYZ " below.

I'm trying to find the average days held for stock meeting my
criterion, weighted by cost for the transaction.

A ... E ... N
Descr. Cost Days Held
======== ======= =========
XYZ ABCD 165.46 98
XYZ BCDE 195.62 15
XYZ CDEF 1240.54 42


I am able to do this weighted average of days held easily for the
rest of my data. E.g.:

=SUMPRODUCT(--($A$2:$A594=$A594),--($N$2:$N594),--($E$2:$E594))/$E595

(where E595 is the total cost for stock matching the description in
Column A).

But this one part of the data has only the beginning of the
description match, not the whole field. I'm stuck. I tried some
things with LEFT and with IF, but couldn't get it to work. Help
appreciated!

=dman=