MIN(ROI,First_N_Values)

Assuming ROI is a one dimensional array.

=MIN(INDEX(ROI,1):INDEX(ROI,n))

If ROI was the range A1:J1

=MIN(INDEX(ROI,1):INDEX(ROI,5))

Evaluates to:

=MIN(A1:E1)

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Thomas M." wrote in message
...
I tired that and was having a problem. However, at the moment I don't
recall what the problem was with that approach. Let me play with it some
more this weekend and I'll let you know what I come up with.

Another approach that I was considering last night, and also could not get
to work, was trying to limit the ROI portion of the formula to a subset of
the ROI range. Basically, I would count the number of cells in the ROI
range that contain data, and then limit the formula so that it considers
only those values. So, in pseudo English, the formula would be something
like:

MIN(ROI,First_N_Values)

Of course, that's not a valid command, but I think you get the idea. At
one time I was an Excel guru, but that was with Excel 4, so it's been a
few years! Anyway, I seem to remember that there was a way to take the
first n values of an array and work with just those values. I just can't
seem to pull out of my memory banks exactly how to do that.

--Tom


"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
Can you redo your ROI formula to account for no data?

If there's data then the ROI formula returns a number, if no data then
the ROI formula returns a blank or some other TEXT value. Then, when
searching for the min that TEXT entry will be ignored.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Thomas M." wrote in message
...
True. I suppose you could sell an investment for exactly what you paid
and have a zero ROI. What I really want to do is come up with a formula
that will ignore those columns in the range that contain no data.
Building on that thought, maybe the formula could key off the ticker
symbol line and be made to basically ignore columns containing no data.
Otherwise, the only way that I can think of to do this is to shrink the
range down to exactly the number of columns that contain data, and only
expand it by inserting columns when there is new data to enter.

--Tom

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
Are you sure you want to ignore 0?

If you can have a positive or negative ROI then a 0 ROI is a real
possibility.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Thomas M." wrote in message
...
Sorry that I could not respond sooner. I've been out sick the last
several days and have not been online much in that time.

I tried your solution and it works fine. However, now I have another
question. What if I wanted to go the other way and have a cell that
shows the smallest ROI in the range?

I thought this would be a simple matter of replacing "MAX" in the
formula with "MIN." The problem is that the ROI range contains 20 or
so columns, but only a few have actual data at the moment, so most of
the formulas on the ROI line equate to zero. Therefore, simply using
the MIN function always returns a zero. I tried to get around this by
counting the number of values in the ROI range that are not equal to
zero, and then using the SMALL function to return the smallest ROI
that is not equal to zero. But I couldn't get that working, and
anyway I think that the way I was trying to do it would only work for
values greater than zero, and not in cases where the ROI is negative.

How would I go about returning the smallest non-zero value--positive
or negative--in the ROI range?

--Tom

"T. Valko" wrote in message
...
Try this...

Assuming your named range, Investment_Table, includes the first row
of column headers.

=INDEX(INDEX(Investment_Table,1,0),MATCH(MAX(ROI), ROI,0))

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"Thomas M." wrote in message
...
Excel 2007

I have stock investment data in a simple spreadsheet. The
spreadsheet is laid out so that company ticker symbols run across
the top row, and the details associated with each investment (share
purchased, buy and sell prices, breakeven price, ROI, etc.) are
listed down the column.

Just for fun I would like to create a formula that shows me the
investment with the greatest ROI. Toward that end, I added a row
called ROI, added formulas to calculate ROI on each investment, and
then named the range. I can use MAX(ROI) to return the highest ROI.
I would like to enhance that formula so that it pulls in the company
name. I tried the following:

=HLOOKUP(MAX(ROI),Investment_Table,1)

That returns #N/A. I thought that since Investment_Table is an
array that maybe the formula needs to be entered as such, but that
didn't make any difference. So I did some reading on Excel's
various lookup functions but I just haven't had any luck. I know
this is doable, in fact I think I did something like this several
years ago but I haven't been able to find that file and I can't seem
to recall how I solved the problem previously.

How can I create a formula that will pick up the maximum ROI and
return the ticker symbol in row 1 of the same column?

--Tom