Macabacus Pluggin…is it used on the Street?

Rising junior with a soph SA gig taking some Excel courses, and the CFI course keeps promoting Macabacus (one of their free (?) products). Supposed to save time in Office with tons of added shortcuts, but I was wondering if it's actually useful/used on the street. Someone at my firm mentioned it once, but didn't go into it.Obviously I am using the QAT, shortcuts, etc to save time, but was wondering if it was worth learning this 3rd party product. Are there ever compliance issues with downloading it? What's the learning curve like? Seems like a lot to learn when I'm just getting a grasp on Excel functions as is

12 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Not really a way to find out until you ask around your group or intern there. Usually CapIQ or FactSet for data pulling. But once you’re on full time, I would actually spend time getting good at the formulas and figuring out what’s possible. This goes a long way, e.g., saving time with price updates, massive arrays for a ten year peer multiple chart with 20k cells or something idk. Swear to god, six months into the job, some analysts still sit there for 30 minutes waiting for FactSet to update (with possibility of XLS crashing), when if you did it right can be easily outputted in 3-5 minutes.

 

If anything, use Maccabus early while you're learning to use excel without the keyboard. Smart precedents / dependents alone will make learning excel MUCH MUCH MUCH easier since you can trace back formulas to see where they're coming-and-going and what they're doing. It also helps learning how to model the "smart" way (e.g. having all your forecast calcs coming from a single tab, vs recalcing them in random places in the workbook whenever you need them.....which eventually lands you smack dab in the middle of Bustville, USA that you'll spend all night trying to fix)

You'll eventually learn either Cap IQ or Factset if / when you begin a career as an analyst, but learning the MS excel basics before you move to writing Factset excel logic seems like the appropriately linear way of going from a novice-to-advanced user.

No idea why the brainiacs Microsoft can't make this a standard feature in the factory-model version of MS excel........

 

Corrupti illum quas est officiis itaque. Sint accusamus ut dolorem. Sunt et ipsam magni. Illo minus a sed placeat ut fuga dolor. Illum sequi ratione dolorem exercitationem rerum exercitationem nihil. Ex alias et quas explicabo porro fugiat. Quisquam voluptates ut sunt odio.

Esse eos dolorum perspiciatis est id. Vel voluptates cupiditate ratione saepe sed excepturi rerum.

Velit magni maiores deserunt amet iusto. Reiciendis repellat quia quibusdam blanditiis. Consequatur rerum quia omnis.

Tenetur voluptatem similique voluptatibus quos placeat dicta. Iste animi facere et perspiciatis. Itaque ut deleniti sit est laborum magnam. Sit ipsa blanditiis at a hic eum. Molestiae quis porro saepe ratione quia. Quam ut id est totam.

Career Advancement Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.8%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.2%
  • Guggenheim Partners 01 97.7%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Morgan Stanley 01 98.8%
  • Evercore 01 98.2%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.6%
  • Banco Santander 01 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Evercore No 98.8%
  • Morgan Stanley 05 98.2%
  • JPMorgan No 97.7%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (14) $434
  • Associates (43) $259
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (22) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (13) $156
  • 1st Year Analyst (75) $151
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (67) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
5
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
6
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
7
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
8
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
9
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”