Introducing Commodity Add-In for Microsoft^® Excel^®

The Commodity Add-In is a high-powered tool that brings consolidated market data alongside Morningstar’s rigorous quality-assurance checks into Microsoft® Excel®. The Add-In was developed by Morningstar in partnership with clients who demand fast access to large amounts of data over wide area networks. The tool is optimized for remote users and provides seamless integration into the user’s local Excel® environment.

Please visit the Commodity Add-In Download Page to read the user guide, release notes and download the latest version of the add-in.

Please visit Morningstar Templates to download working spreadsheets created with the new Commodity Add-in.

Commodity Add-In Functionality

Real Time and Delayed Data

The functionality allows users to receive live and delayed quotes within Microsoft Excel using simple native commands. Users can access real-time data feeds from global futures exchanges and the North American Power Markets (ISOs). The real-time functionality is part of the Commodity Dashboard subscription.

Deployment Flexibility

Utilizing the versatile Web Services platform, the Add-In was developed to allow maximum flexibility for deployment and connectivity. The Commodity Add-In is easy to install with customized deployment solutions connecting to local as well as hosted environments.  

Performance

Core and optional data is available for fast downloads into local systems. Refresh times for 1-year series is as low as 1 second/set. The Commodity Add-In takes advantage of the functionality available in Microsoft® Excel® to give users increased flexibility with manipulating data.

7-Day Intraday Data

With the ability to create and export tables of data, the Add-In provides useful Summary Statistics directly into the user’s environment. Statistics include average price per period, maximum and minimum prices along as well as standard deviation and last closing price.

Units and Currency Conversion

To allow for systematic comparisons between multiple energy commodities, the Commodity Add-In converts different units of quotation into one common unit. The built-in conversion function translates measurement units and currencies into a common format for in-depth analysis or extraction into spreadsheets.

Custom Formulas

Custom formulas allow for easy manipulation of raw time-series data into actionable information. The Commodity Add-In gives users the ability to create their own formulas or select from the large library of  100+ formulas already built into the server. Formulas range from simple addition and subtraction operations to dynamic functions such as 5x16 averages, MACD oscillators, and Bollinger bands.

Event-Driven Analysis

Morningstar’s proprietary near-English query language coupled with the beta Query Function gives research analysts and risk management professionals the ability to test technical and fundamental strategies in an Excel® environment. The scalability of the language allows for a large number of contracts, nodes, or global macro data to undergo the same trading strategy in minutes.

Data Upload

Utilizing Morningstar’s dynamic web services, the data upload functionality allows users to load proprietary data to the Commodity DataServer in seconds. Every upload is indexed, entitled, and logged providing administrators with a comprehensive tool to see who, when, and where a data set was loaded. The data upload feature leverages Morningstar’s prebuilt parsers to roll a group of individual contracts into a continuous series.