Find three largest and smallest values in column of table

Hello, so I have a 1500x15 table, in which one column represents profits for that asset. I would like to know how to code to return the three largest and smallest values in column 4. Additionally, I would like the code to also return the corresponding name (in column 1) of these values.

Answer 1

[Peter Perkins]

As Walter said, this is just sorting. In R2013b or later, use a table:

>> asset = {'a'; 'a'; 'a'; 'b'; 'b'; 'b'; 'c'; 'd'; 'e'};
>> price = rand(9,1);
>> x = randn(9,1);
>> data = table(asset,price,x)
data = 
    asset     price         x    
    _____    _______    _________
    'a'      0.81472       2.7694
    'a'      0.90579      -1.3499
    'a'      0.12699       3.0349
    'b'      0.91338       0.7254
    'b'      0.63236    -0.063055
    'b'      0.09754      0.71474
    'c'       0.2785     -0.20497
    'd'      0.54688     -0.12414
    'e'      0.95751       1.4897
>> data = sortrows(data,'price');
>> smallest = data([1 2 3],:)
smallest = 
    asset     price        x    
    _____    _______    ________
    'b'      0.09754     0.71474
    'a'      0.12699      3.0349
    'c'       0.2785    -0.20497
>> largest = data([end-2 end-1 end],:)
largest = 
    asset     price        x   
    _____    _______    _______
    'a'      0.90579    -1.3499
    'b'      0.91338     0.7254
    'e'      0.95751     1.4897

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Extract the values. sort() them, also returning the index as the second output of sort(). The first three sorted values are the three smallest values. The last three sorted values are the three largest values. The corresponding entries from the second output of sort can be used to index the name column.