Collect the daily stock prices over the past year from Yahoo! Finance for SPY, which is the symbol for the exchange traded fund that attempts to mimic the S&P 500 index, which is often used as the pro

Obtaining Historical Returns from Yahoo! Finance

1. Go to https://finance.yahoo.com/

2. In the search box near the top, enter “SPY” and click search.

Collect the daily stock prices over the past year from Yahoo! Finance for SPY, which is the symbol for the exchange traded fund that attempts to mimic the S&P 500 index, which is often used as the pro 1

3. Toward the middle right, click “Historical Data”.

4. Use the default data settings of one year, daily returns. Click “Apply”. Then click “Download Data”.

5. In the excel file that pops open, keep only the “Date” and “Adj Close” columns. Delete the others. We use Adj Close because it includes certain events, such as stock splits, dividends, etc. that can affect the holding period return of the stock.

6. In cell C3, calculate the daily return, which is =B3/B2 – 1 Then copy down the formula into the other cells up to approximately cell 253 (not shown all the way down).

7. Now open the M5_Project_1 Excel file. Then go back to the file you were just working on and select and copy the dates from cell A3 down (start at A3 and not A2 since we do not have a return in C2) and paste over the dates in the M5_Project_1 Excel file.

Note: Use the dates you come up with when following the steps, not the dates shown in the file.

Then do the same for the returns from C3 down and paste into the M5_Project_1 file (be sure to “Paste Values”, not just Paste).

8. Now repeat the process above for the two stocks you select, pasting the returns you calculate into the appropriate place in the M5_Project_1 Excel file.

9. Then all the cells needed for the analysis should be complete and you can answer the questions.

Note: See the Project_1_Solved file for an example of how the excel file should look when completed. Then you have to interpret the data and answer the questions.