LinkBuilder:  V1.0

The Linkbuilder add-in provides two useful functions that show up under the "user defined" section: IndustryLookup - Which takes symbol as an input, and returns the industry that the symbol belongs to. LinkBuilder - Which takes a base url and symbol, and returns a valid hyperlink.  The IndustryLookup function is quite simple, and hence will not be displayed. For an illustration of how this is used look  at cell j3 the Industry Overview V1.1 spreadsheet for an example. The LinkBuilder function is a bit more complicated, and much more interesting. The basic concept is to provide a context  sensitive solution for creating hyperlinks from within Excel. The reason this is useful is that not all sites take symbol as an input parameter for a specific web query. For example, yahoo provides industry headlines that are not accessible via a stock symbol.  Download Now!

LinkBuilder Usage Notes:

The value of LinkBuilder is that you can pass in ticker as a parameter, and then the appropriate url is constructed as a result of looking up the industry code for the symbol being requested. Lets take a detailed look at one of the parameters which is the key to the usage of this function. (Symbol is simply a stock symbol, so that does not need to be reviewed.)

URL - The URL parameter consists of two primary parts. The "base" url, or the piece that doesn't change, and the "keyword" which gets substituted by the LinkBuilder function. For example the following url is passed to the function for Fidelity's chart view:

http://activequote.fidelity.com/rtrnews/charts.phtml?ticker=[QUOTESYMBOL]

Everything up to and including the "=" sign is the base url, and the [QUOTESYMBOL] portion is the keyword. The important thing here is that each "keyword" is treated differently, and has different logic applied to it. This is the key to constructing the correct url for linking. 

The following keywords are currently supported:

QUOTESYMBOL - The symbol to be used in order to get a quote. (We differentiate from the RESEARCHSYMBOL in order to support quotes for preferred stocks.)
RESEARCHSYMBOL - This symbol is used in order to get "research" about a company. Again, we differentiate from the QUOTESYMBOL in order to support preferred stocks.
INDUSTRYCODE - Which is used to get the appropriate Yahoo Industry code, as defined in there stock screener.
YAHOOSECTORNEWS - Which is used to get the appropriate Yahoo industry sector in order to access their industry news.
COMPANYNAME - Which is used to get the company name for the symbol being requested. An example of this would be to search google with the company name.

The portfolio sheet provides an excellent illustration on how this function can be used. In order to see the relevant pieces, unhide columns W and X. This columns provide a listing of urls that the user can link to. This list is also provided via the combo box that is positioned over cell H4. When the user selects a destination site from within the combo box, it changes the value in cell w8. The change there triggers a lookup of the list in columns w and x, and is returned to cell x8. This change then triggers recalculation of the linkbuilder function which is in the description column of the worksheet. The resultant hyperlink then takes you to the destination for the symbol that is being clicked on.

If you have further questions on how to use this function, send email to admin@toteboard.net. 

NOTE: This only needs to be done once to work with any spreadsheet that utilizes the Linkbuilder function.