Adding Data from Multiple-Length Columns

[WangDoodle]

I have a rather interesting Excel challenge involving data that must be summed from columns of varying and daily-changing length. I describe the current process in steps:

1) I query Excel to download stock prices in column B and concomitant dates in Column A of 800 days or less, for a list of 17 stock issues, each on a separate sheet.

2) If the stock price for a particular issue is priced higher compared to previous trading day, Column F is delineated 1; if the issue is lower, Column F is delineated -1.

3) The -1s are deducted from the 1s for a sum, which appears in Column B of a sheet named "summation".

4) Unfortunately, several of the stocks have not been trading anywhere close to 800 days, and in any case, the dates between today and 800 prior days provide an inconsistent number of rows due to trading holidays, weekends, etc.

5) Question: Is it possible to get Excel to add the 1s and -1s for the corresponding dates of each stock's worksheet, even if a particular worksheet has 200 rows, 400 rows or 800 rows? To compensate for the varying total summed, I can perform a ratio of the issues summed in each instance, if necessary.

Thank you for any help.

[Cheeky Charlie]

Try using vlookup. I'm not exactly sure what you want - if you upload an example showing clearly what you have now and what you would like to have I can probably offer more specific guidance.

[WangDoodle]

Thanks a lot for your response! I'll upload the workbook.

It will probably be less cumbersome for you if I break down my request into separate components, however. I suppose it would be easiest if all the data from each sheet is on one page. So, prior to uploading the spreadsheet workbook (2007 version of Excel), can you instruct me how to make the data for each of the 17 worksheets appear on a single sheet?

Each sheet concerns one stock issue, and has 4 columns, Column A (date), Column B (closing price), column E (price change from previous trading day), Column F (+1 if positive price change from previous day, -1 if negative price change from previous day). Each sheet consists of widely varying start dates, so the columns are of varying lengths. All have the same end date (last trading day). I query the price data at the end of each day, so it changes daily.

If you DON'T think putting the data all on one page helps, I'll just upload the workbook, but I'm afraid the task will be more cumbersome and the task less clear.