matching up a colum with another column while removing blank rows

a mouthful I know - i am trying to maintain a column of data - they are entry and exit prices for a stock trading system. The 1st colum records all the entry and exit prices AS WELL as exits after and entry was recorded. Some of the trades are losing trades (thats ok) and some are winners. The challenge is is the format of the trade log. it appears in this fashion

Buy
PT1 (profit target 1)
PT2 (profit target 2)
PT3 (profit Target 3)
Tr Exit (stop out)

I am trying to assess the metrics of an entry relative to the exit to determine profitability. The problem is the EXITS (whichever one) are listed in COLUMNS with a LOT of blank spaces in between depending on which exit was triggered (PT1, PT2, PT3 or Tr Exit) How can I match up say the BUYS with certain exits to run calculations? I know I can filter the colums but when I do I am losing the EXIT data ? FOr example I Filter for BUY trade entry and when I do this all other data is removed showing only BUY signals in one column. This is no help given I have removed or filtered out all of the exit data

I have attached a link to a 5 min video I made explaining everything much better than words. Just click the link and it opend from my server and you can see what I am trying to accomplish.
Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions

http://www.screencast.com/users/Fulc...6-82e1ca4d8e54


atlus

I saw your video and I believe I have a solution(at least a workaround to Filter because I too have issues with it) Select the column (column D in the video) that has the Sell, PT1, PT2, ... etc in it. and then press CTRL+F. Type in a category you don't want to view. I'll use "Sell" for an example. After typing "Sell" click Find All.

Below "Find All" will be a list of all of the cells that contain the word "Sell". Use your mouse to select all of these entries in the list. Now exit out of the Find and Replace window.

What you should have is all of the cells that contain the word "Sell" in them are now highlighted. Press CTRL+9 which will hide the rows that the word "Sell" is in. Pressing CTRL+SHIFT+9 will unhide them.

To hide a column you can press CTRL+0 (to unhide is CTRL+SHIFT+0).

If you do a search for each word you don't want to view and hide their rows, you will be left with only the word you do want. Then if you want to copy just the visible cells press ALT+; and then CTRL+C and you will be able to paste them wherever you'd like.

wow ... thanks Enigmafish14 - Im going to have to re-read and try that and I will update you as to whether it works - thats a tip Ive never seen before but I am anxious to try .. thanks again and I will update this thread and let you know ifI can get that to work !



atlus

I do alot of formatting of spreadsheets that come to me in less than ideal formats. This is one of the ways I've found works best to extract the needed information without altering or destroying any of the original information.

Let me know how this works for you and if it doesn't I'll do my best to find another way for you.

You might also need this info: If you'd like to hide blank cells, press F5 and then select "Special" (or press ALT+S) and then select "blanks" in the left column (or press "k") and then OK. this will select all of the blank cells in the range that you specified and then you can hide their row or column accordingly. (You can tell I do a lot of blank cell hiding)

thanks again - I was able to get this issue resolved - well not really but i found a workaround with out having to solve what i was attempting but again, thanks Enigmafish14!


Atlus