How do I specify variable names in Matlab?

I have a portfolio of 10 stocks on an excel spreadsheet and have the names of the stocks in the first row. I can import this to Matlab by defining my data as a numeric matrix as opposed to a column vector. This allows me to calculate the variance-covariance matrix, which I was unable to do by importing the spreadsheet as a column vector.

The problem now is that I now cannot specify that my first row is variable names. Does anyone have any advice? I would be most grateful for your help. Thank you!

[jgg]

Try using readtable instead of the method you're using to import the data. You can then use table2array to calculate your covariance matrix.

Basically, you'll save a lot of time and effort by using the right datatypes off the bat.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

[num, txt] = xlsread('YourXLSFile.xls');

Then the numbers are in num and the variable names are in txt.

[Calum Crichton]

This worked. Thank you! The last thing I need help with is that after doing this how do I define an AssetList? E.g. when I use

p = Portfolio('AssetList', {'stockA','stockB'etc},'RiskFreeRate',CashRet);

it will not recognise the names of the assets

[Walter Roberson]

p = Portfolio('AssetList', txt(:).', 'RiskFreeRate', CashRet);

I do not know for sure that the cell array needs to be a row vector, but that is what I see in the examples.