How to Construct a Histogram Using Excel 2007

1.
Capture the stock data. Go to Yahoo Finance and type 'SBUX' in the symbol box. Click on the link that says 'historical prices'. Go to the bottom of the page and click 'download to spreadsheet'. The info will download automatically and then open in an Excel spreadsheet.
2.
Get the Max and Min values of the 'Adj Close' column. Go to the editing option of the Home menu. In the drop-down box of mathematical functions select 'Max.' Type 'G2:G501' and press 'Enter.' Repeat the same with 'Min.' The Max value should be 28.29 and the Min value should be 7.17.
3.
Create the bin values. Round 28.29 to 30 and 7.17 down to 5. Start at 5 and add increments of 1 until you get to 30. Type those numbers in the column next to 'Adj Close' and call it 'Bin values.'
4.
Open the histogram dialog box. Under the 'Data' tab select 'Data Analysis'. In the dialog box select 'Histogram' and press 'OK.' The Histogram dialog box will then open.
5.
Input the histogram setting. In the 'Input Range' field type '$G$2:$G$501' and in the 'Bin Range' field type '$H$2:$H$25'. These are the cell ranges of the data and bin values respectively. In 'Output Options' select 'New Worksheet Ply' and name the worksheet 'Histogram.' Then select chart output and press 'OK.'
6.
Survey the Histogram. Observe the distributions of the lines. If they bundled in the middle the histogram is said to be 'evenly distributed' or 'bi modal.' This is usually the case with test or survey data. As is sometimes expected with erratic stock data the histogram in this article turned out to be 'saw-toothed.' This kind of distribution might indicate that the stock under inspection has been quite volatile over the past 500 days.