Microsoft has teamed up with Nasdaq and Refinitiv to empower everyday investors by bringing real-time US equity market data to its Excel spreadsheet software.
Last year Microsoft introduced Stocks, a data type in Excel powered by AI, which turns a stock ticker into an interactive entity with layers of rich information like price, change, and currency.
The feature is now getting a boost, pulling current financial information for the full range of US exchange-listed equities, including stocks on the Nasdaq and from Refinitiv right into the Excel Stocks Data Type.
Stocks in Excel now expands financial data to include bitcoin, bonds, international currencies, extended-hours pricing information and information about the company, like industry and company description, in addition to other previously available data like mutual funds and stock indexes.
To use the feature, a person simply types a ticker - for example MSFT - and clicks "stocks". Excel recognises it as a stock and gives an option to convert it into a rich entity linked with properties of related information, including real-time attributes such as price, change, last trade time, and 52-week high/low.
Oliver Albers, head, strategic partnerships, Nasdaq Global Information Services, says: "Our collaboration with Microsoft is a significant step towards bringing important market information to individual investors. Microsoft’s focus on empowering individuals aligns perfectly with our mission to make financial markets more inclusive."