Chapter 18, Problem 29RQ

Download the weekly retail gasoline and diesel prices Excel workbook Gasoline.xlsx associated with this review question and place it in your main MATLAB Current Directory. This data set is based on the data set available from the U.S. Energy Information Administration: http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_gnd_dcus_nus_w.htm. WARNING: Your system MAY import the first column (dates) as numeric date codes instead of ignoring them as text, so watch out.

a.    Calculate the average, minimum, and maximum retail fuel prices for each of the different types of fuel (regular, midgrade, premium, diesel) over the duration of the entire sample set. Your output should work in such a way that if the original Excel file were modified to include more weeks (rows), you would not need to change your MATLAB code. Your output should appear similar to the following format, where the blanks are replaced by the actual calculated values:

Your code should calculate the values shown in the output—you should not hard-code the values in the output. Each value you display should appear with two decimal values. You may use any built-in MATLAB function, including functions that find the minimum, maximum, or average values.

b.    We have decided that we want to modify our previous analysis in part (a) to export the computed max, min, and average values to a new Microsoft Excel workbook. The data itself should be exported to a sheet named Fuel Price Analysis. Your data should appear similar to the worksheet that follows. Much like part (a), your code should be written in such a way that if the original Excel file were modified to include more weeks (rows), you would not need to change your MATLAB code.