I have a favoriate Weekly exploration that performs a relative strength comparison between a group of maybe 1000 stocks and an index. The results in the report are ranked according to the results of one particular indicator which is in one of the columns. They are ranked from high to low bassed on the value of the indicator. The typical report on any given weekend is maybe 400 stocks. This was the easy part. :D Now, I would like to take the results of that Weekly exploration (from a prior week, I'll refer to it as Week #1), ranked by that same indicator, and compare it to the latest week's report (which I'll refer to as Week #2). Due to the filter, the output report of Week #2 will include many - but never all - of the stocks from Week #1 exploration report. What is proving difficult is, I would like to program an exploration to compare the stocks and the rankings of each stock in Week #2 versus that of Week #1. I want to be able to track how any stock that appeared on both the Week #1 report and the Week #2 report moved up or down in the rankings - - and if it did, by how much did the ranking change from one week to the next. I know I could dump the results of each week's report into Excel or Access and do the ranking and comparison using either of those programs. But I would really prefer to do it in MS. Thanks to anyone who can offer any suggestions

Thanks for the quick reply Roy My problem, as I see it, is trying to track what was the ranking of each stock from one week to the next given that the output will differ (not each stock will make the list each week). The ranking will change for two reasons: 1. a given stock may drop off or come onto the list, and 2. the value of the indicator I am using to rank the stocks will change from week to week. Again, for those stocks that appear on the reports each week, from week to week, what I am trying to capture is how each stock's ranking has changed from one week to the next. I can't figure out how to "lock" what was the ranking of each stock in Week #1 and then compare that previous ranking to its current rank for Week #2. I guess part of my problem is how to calculate and then separately track the ranking. Of course once I have the output report I can easily sort it, but I am stumped how to capture in one exploration the rankings for the two weeks. To your point (I think) Yes I could easily use one column for the current value of the indicator and another column for the prior week's value. But at the risk of repeating myself, I am primarily interested in the [color=blue:1588fe4082]change in the ranking [/color]of each stock from week to week, not the change in the value of the indicator I use to rank them. So if the list from the exploration of Week #1 yields 450 stocks and the report from Week #2 results in 525 stocks BUT only 400 stocks appeared on BOTH weekly lists, I am not certain how to separately track the ranking - up or down - of those 400 stocks from Week #1 to #2. Maybe I am making this harder than it should be . . . .? Ideally, my last step would be to isolate, from those 400 stocks that appeared on both lists, the top 40 or 50 (these select few would be my buy/sell short candidates) and I would run that much smaller set thru another exploration that would show if any signals had been triggered. Thanks again for your thoughts PS - your newsletter is great!