For many, the start of a new year is a time to take stock. For Microsoft, it was a time to stop giving it as the company kicked off 2026 with a bug that broke Excel's StockHistory function.

A Register reader reported the problem to us over the weekend. 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 problem affected both the web and desktop versions of Microsoft's spreadsheet application and, according to affected users, has happened before. "It's down at least twice a year," grumbled one customer, who said their Microsoft 365 subscription was paid purely to gain access to the feature.

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.

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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. Kicking off 2026 with a broken Excel function that leaves the carefully crafted spreadsheets of stock watchers borked is therefore par for the course.

One of the company's New Year's Resolutions is to persuade its customers that AI output is more than just slop. Any hopes that another might be to make its software a little less fragile have sadly already been dashed. ®