For a class, as a finance major we have to do this. We have very minimal matlab experience. Here is the assignment:

"2.7 For purposes of handling large or more than one Excel data file, it is recommended that you access the spreadsheet data from MATLAB® using its Component Object Model (COM) instead of directly accessing the data and implementing it. When you create a Microsoft ActiveX object in an Automation server that runs the Excel application, MATLAB can access the data in the spreadsheet through the interfaces provided by the Excel Automation server. Write a code that runs the Excel application in an Automation server process using the actxserver function and the program ID, excel.application to access the data in the Excel data file ‘lab2_data.xlsx’. :


and here is another unrelated difficult question:

"2.8 MATLAB® “Statistics Toolbox™” includes a “dataset structure” that facilitates working with heterogeneous data, since they accommodate data of different types, sizes, and units into a single container variable. Modify the code used to calculate problems 2.1 through 2.6 to create a dataset array. "

Thanks!