Custom Number Formatting

Anyone that has worked on a client pitchbook for banking or an investment committee memo for private equity knows that formatting is of the utmost importance (some might say gross overimportance).  I can't speak for hedge funds, but I have a friend that proudly works at a health care hedge fund, and believes that formatting is for people who don't have a real job like him.

I'd rather not debate who has a real job or whether formatting is important or not, but let me give you some words of motivation on why I even attempt to format spreadsheets and presentations.  When I suffered Training the Street (are all these references a delayed onset of Stockholm Syndrome?), our instructor Scott threatened all bad formatters by saying, "Watch out, I am an anal monster."  Yeah.  Of course you are.

So some of you may be interested in what an anal monster does or who among your coworkers are anal monsters, but I just assume that everyone is one and that nice formatting can prevent me from finding out anything more.  For this particular post, let's talk about nice formatting in terms of number formats, starting with CTRL + 1, ALT + C, END, ALT + T:

I will assume you know the basics on formatting dollars in millions, with negative numbers in parentheses (rather than with a "minus") and one or two decimal places of significant digits.  If you're already doing this formatting with custom formats, then great; otherwise, read closely to find out what you've been missing.  In the "Type:" field of the "Number" format menu shown above, number formats are entered as: a;b;c where "a" represents positive numbers, "b" represents negative numbers, and "c" represents zero.  You can thus apply some of the following format types:

1. $#,##0.0_);($#,##0.0);"-" for dollars: The #'s ensure that if you enter the number 1.1, it will show up as $1.1 (not $0,001.1) but a number in the thousands or above will still have a comma separating every three digits.  Moreover, zero will appear as a dash, and not "0;" this is more of a personal preference to eliminate seas of zeros that sometimes make extensive models hard to read, and also to allow easy recognition between an absolute zero and a very small number like 0.001 that appears as 0.0.
2. $#,##0.0_);[RED]($#,##0.0);"-" for dollars with negative numbers automatically colored red: Basic colors like [RED] and [BLUE] work in the customer formatting framework when in brackets and preceding an expression.  You can also try [TURQUOISE], but that would make you an idiot.
3. #,##0.0x_);(#,##0.0x);"-" for multiples
4. #,##0.0%_);(#,##0.0%);"-" for percentages
5. "Yes";;"No" for binary code: Excel also has TRUE and FALSE built into the program as 1 and 0, respectively.
6. "" or ;;; to make cells blank
7. mm/dd/yy for dates: Other formats that work include mmm dd, yyyy or mmmm dd or some combination.  I have no idea how this follows the positive;negative;zero rule.

You get the idea.  And you have probably figured out by now that you can also format a number using one of the preset options, and later toggle to the custom option to see the code.  The possibilities are limitless.  Just don't use that stupid accountant format where you right align a number and the dollar sign is still all the way to the left.  If you do use it, why don't you try writing out the number 1,000 as 1,                  000?  Maybe that will satisfy your urge to make documents as illegible as possible.

Last thought: does an anal monster enjoy "anus" or "ani?"

I work for TTS and enjoy the plural of anus 

Helpful,

-F-One

Need for Speed

How fast can a human being possibly use Excel?  This is not an easy question to answer.  However, it's frequently a very important question to the younger people that work in investment banking, PE or hedge funds, because much of their livelihoods are tied to Excel.  Particularly in banking, the faster your execution speed is overall, the less miserable life becomes.  Speaking of miserable, for the week that I was exposed to Training the Street, they introduced us to their version of the "Excel speed test," which was a formatting exercise typically completed in a minute, but sometimes completed as quickly as 30 seconds.  I never finished it, so you could probably call me slow.

Regardless, I do know a thing or two about speed relative to Excel. Here is what it takes:

How fast (or slow) of a typist are you?

1. Typing speed - If you can't type at least capably, you can give up any hope of using Excel any faster than that old MD that doesn't check e-mails or use Excel since he started working before computers and high-yield debt existed. Typing speed is like the 40-yard dash for football players: raw speed. You could type 130 WPM (probably equivalent to a 4.2 second 40), or you could only type 50 WPM (offensive lineman speed). Anything below that range, and you should probably consider changing professions.
2. Shortcut/function knowledge - Even if you are the greatest typist in the world, you can't do much financial modeling (at least quickly) without knowing your way around Excel.  This is the same reason track stars cannot always be great football players; speed is no guarantee that they know the playbook and how to play (think of John Capel vs. Randy Moss).  So for maximum speed, you need to know things like CTRL + 1, CTRL + arrow keys, etc.  Having the ability to type out a Steven King novel in a couple of hours may help, but not much since you aren't writing novels in the spreadsheet.
3. Brainpower - Some might argue that this is tied to typing speed, which is partly true, but I want to highlight the importance of a good memory, quick recall function, etc.  You may have posted on the side of your cubicle (a good Asian friend of mine used to call it a "cubic") a sheet listing commonly used keyboard shortcuts.  Does this help you?  Maybe, but certainly not in significantly increasing your speed.  If you just transitioned from Excel 2003 to 2007 and are looking for the command for "Page Setup" (ALT, P, S, P), scanning the sheet and then typing the command is not very efficient.  Similarly, if you somewhat remember the function and have to think about it for 10 seconds, that's not very efficient either.  But if you know every function off the top of your head, you'll obviously operate much faster than others who need to refer to either their physical or mental cheat sheets.

The good news: all 3 of the aforementioned attributes can be significantly developed with the proper amount of repetition.  One year of banking analyst experience will yield roughly 5,000 hours of work, much of which is sadly just improving your computer skills through repetition.

So how fast is fast?  Well, Mrs. F-One can type 120 WPM.  That's pretty fast.  I can build a 3-statement model while using one hand to eat buffalo wings in less than 15 minutes.  Maybe you're not impressed, but given that I only type 80 WPM with TWO hands, that's not bad.  I've often mentioned to friends that if Mrs. F-One and I were to produce a child that gets all the right traits, this child would be the Lebron James of investment banking.  The other child would probably get cut from middle school basketball.  Anyway, I would gladly let Le-One go straight from high school to the pros.  The only part I want to avoid is Gloria James banging Delonte West in the team hotel.

I'm taking my talents to Wall Street...as soon as I unlodge this basketball from my dong.

There are obviously many ways to improve Excel speed, some of which I will discuss in future posts.  In the mean time, I strongly suggest 1) continuing to work hard while making an effort to memorize more functions/keystrokes and 2) http://www.freetetris.org/

Enjoy while Mrs. F-One gives me a beatdown for suggesting that our future child should become a banker,

F-One