What is Initial Margin? Initial margin refers to the percentage of equity a margin account holder must contribute to the purchase of securities. In other words, initial margin refers to the proportion of the total market value of the securities purchased that must be paid in cash by the investor. Understanding Initial Margin An investor…
What is the DURATION Function? The DURATION Function is categorized under Excel Financial functions. It helps to calculate the Macauley Duration. The function calculates the duration of a security that pays interest on a periodic basis with a par value of $100. DURATION is commonly used by Portfolio Managers who use the immunization strategy. Apart…
What is the INTRATE Function? The INTRATE Function is categorized under Excel Financial functions. It will calculate the interest rate for a fully invested security. The function was introduced in MS Excel 2007. As a financial analyst, we regularly come across scenarios where we need to evaluate investments. The INTRATE function is particularly useful in…
What is the IRR Function? The IRR Function is categorized under Excel Financial functions. IRR will return the Internal Rate of Return for a given cash flow, that is, the initial investment value and a series of net income values. The function is very helpful in financial modeling, as it helps calculate the rate of…
What is CAN SLIM? CAN SLIM, also referred to as “CANSLIM,” is an acronym where each letter identifies key characteristics to look for in a company. Developed by American William O’Neil, CANSLIM is used to aid in investment decisions by identifying strong-performing growth stocks. Who is William O’Neil? William O’Neil, born March 25, 1933, is…
The SUBSTITUTE function in Excel replaces occurrences of specified text within a string. Its syntax is =SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num]), where instance_num specifies which occurrence to replace. Unlike the REPLACE function, which targets a position within a string, SUBSTITUTE replaces specified text regardless of its position. It is case-sensitive and useful for cleaning and modifying…
What is Excel ISBLANK Function? The ISBLANK Function is an Excel Information function that returns true if the argument cell has no information in it. ISBLANK checks a specified cell and tells us if it is blank or not. If it is blank, it will return TRUE; else, it will return FALSE. The function was introduced in…
What is the STDEV.S Function? The STDEV.S Function is an Excel Statistical function that will calculate the standard deviation that is based on a sample of the population. It will ignore logical values and text. While doing financial analysis, the STDEV.S function can be useful in, for example, measuring the income standard deviation representative of…
What is the STDEV.P Function? The STDEV.P Function is categorized under Excel Statistical functions. STDEV.P will calculate the standard deviation that is based on an entire population given as arguments. It will ignore logical values and text. As a financial analyst, the STDEV.P function can be useful in, for example, calculating deviations in revenue. Portfolio…
What is the TBILLYIELD Function? The TBILLYIELD Function is categorized under Excel FINANCIAL functions. It will calculate the yield on a Treasury bill. In financial analysis, TBILLYIELD can be useful in calculating the yield on a Treasury bill when we are given the start date, end date, and price. Formula =TBILLYIELD(settlement, maturity, pr) The TBILLYIELD…
