Patrick,

Do you have the dates when your cell C857 triggered you to Sell or to Buy.?
What happens when you the index goes up consecutive times up by 1.5% that is
to buy and buy again ? Is there money left for the second buy?
Can you short the market?
Where are the returns of the period when you are at buy mode and then decide
to sell? So your investment really is principal + return?

You will have to provide with more details before a formula can found of how
you data is structured and preferablly with some example.


Otherwise holding period returns are simply your
=Principal * (1-.25%) * (4%* duration you held the T-bill) + any coupon if
any...




"Patrick" wrote in message
...
Hello,
For a Finance class I have to program a realtively complex if statement,
and
have been working on it for quite some time, to no avail. The statement
must
state that, IF the total % return on an index goes up by 1.5% or more
then
BUY if it goes down by 1.5% or more the SELL. Everything in between you
are
to hold. Now, in the event that you are not between a buy and a sell your
money is to be invested at a T-Bill rate of 4%. Any transaction costs
will
cost .25%. I have the BUY/SELL function
programmed=IF(C857<=-0.015,"Buy",IF(C857=0.015,"Sell","")). It now tells
me
when to buy or sell. Now I need to figure the Holding period return for
when
the money is invested in the T-Bill and when it is invested in the market.
Any pointers? Thanks!

Patrick