"It also turned up on social media and in Microsoft's feedback forums. The function, which usually returns data about a stock, began returning connection errors. We suspect checking a financial position was the last thing on the minds of many over Christmas, but as the problem dragged on into the New Year, more users found themselves faced with an "unable to connect" error."
"The StockHistory function data is provided by LSEG Data & Analytics, though it's not immediately clear where the problem lay. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the receipt of our question, but did not provide any further details. A support chat posted on Reddit suggested that the problem was down to a "known bug," which was scant comfort to users expecting the data to be flowing as the first day of trading got underway."
"After several days, functionality was restored. However, this was not before users began seeking alternatives. After all, the market tends to move faster than the time it takes Microsoft to deal with whatever has broken. Microsoft has had a torrid few years when it comes to the reliability of its software, regularly introducing new and exciting ways for code to fail in almost every update."
Excel's StockHistory function failed at the start of 2026, returning "unable to connect" errors for both web and desktop users. The outage was reported on social media, forums and by a Register reader, and affected users said similar failures happen about twice a year. StockHistory pulls data from LSEG Data & Analytics, but the precise source of the fault was unclear. Microsoft acknowledged the query without details and a Reddit support chat called it a "known bug." Functionality returned after several days, during which users sought alternative data sources because markets move faster than remediation.
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