Running Data Table using an input that triggers DDE linked data
 

I'm posting this again because I'm really hoping to get an answer.

I have a spreadsheet that is set up to pull up historical stock prices
via
dde links that is driven by the stock's ticker - e.g. MSFT

Once the prices are pulled into the spreadsheet, it calculates some
values -
to keep it simple, let's say it calculates a 5d, 20d and 50d moving
averages.

I want to create a data table that will use all the tickers I want to
look
at in the column on the left, and the three moving average periods in
the
row, looking something like this:
Moving Average Period (days)
A1 5 20 50
Stock MSFT
Ticker IBM
HP

A1 is the cell reference to the formula that calculates the moving
average.
Another cell, let's say B1 contains the current ticker, MSFT, and that
is the
column reference for the stock tickers in the table, and, let's say C1
contains the current moving average period, 5 (days).

When I build the data table, even though I can see the spreadsheet
going
through the motions of "calculating" for each row and column in the
data
table, only the current ticker is used by the data table. The row
header
(moving average period) works fine.

But I end up with a data table that has the first row (in this
example,
because it is the same as the current value in the Ticker cell B1) of
data
correct, but just repeated all the way down for each ticker. That is,
the
remaining tickers show the MSFT calculations in their rows.

I've got a reasonable amount of experience, and I know (and have
checked)
that my data table settings are fine.

Is it possible to do this? Because the calculations done on the stock
prices are really not this simple, and involve alot of data through
the DDE,
I don't want to have to build a repeated calculation model for each
ticker
(because we're talking alot more than three).

Hope this explains what I'm trying to do. I wondered if it was the
DDE link
that causes the problem (works fine for the current link, and I can
see it
"resetting" through every iteration of the data tabel calculation). I
also
thought it may be that data tables will only accept numerical inputs.

Any suggestions would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks!

I have never used DDE. Are you saying that at any point in time there is
only the raw data for one company in the worksheet? If so, are you hoping
that the DT will re-run a series of queries and each time calculate the
appropriate moving averages? I have no idea whether Excel will do that. It
seems to me though that, if this is happening, then the data for the last
company in the list (HP in your example) will be in the sheet. Is it?

--
Jim Rech
Excel MVP