1. Organize your data files (personally I would have one file for each type of data; e.g., one file for 5-year daily data with the company data and the price data for each index; which would give you 2-4 betas in that file alone). Include your name in the filename!

2. Then you calculate the daily, weekly or monthly percentage (%) price changes (i.e., returns) so that you are able to run regressions in Excel to calculate the coefficient estimates, when the percent change in the stock price is regressed (the y or dependent variable) on the percent change in a given index (the x or independent variable). Use the ?Adj. Close? as stock price, which has adjusted for dividends. Calculate the percentage return as based upon the prices of your company and the indices (% return = [most recent price/previous price] ? 1). Do this in the top cell of a column; then highlight the whole column with your mouse and press Control-D (which fills down).

1 year daily 1 year monthly 2 year daily 2 year monthly 3 year daily 3 year monthly 4 year daily 4 year monthly 5 year daily 5 year monthly NYSE/HD Beta 0.981 0.760 0.933 0.984 0.899 0.873 0.832 0.887 0.815 0.819 SP500/HD Beta 0.037 0.778 0.031 1.028 0.066 1.003 0.087 1.007 0.890 0.952