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Downloading Stock Quotes FAQ

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What is the difference between downloading quotes and importing quotes?

How do I download quotes using Master Investor?

How do I import quotes using Master Investor?

How can I get historical quotes into MI?

Downloading current quotes stopped working. How can I fix it.

Downloading vs. Importing

Master Investor includes capabilities for both downloading price quotes and for importing price quotes.  When we refer to downloading, we mean that the MI will

  • Access the internet quote server.
  • Request current quotes for stocks and funds that have been defined in MI 2000
  • Download the resulting data to a temporary file and
  • Import that data into the price database used by MI 2000.

At present, Master Investor 6 is capable of downloading only current and historic quotes.  The Yahoo Finance sites have quotes available for nearly all world exchanges. Select the appropriate download format (Yahoo Finance for current quotes and Yahoo Historic for historic quotes). When downloading historic quotes, only one issue at a time can be downloaded and the user is prompted for the ticker symbol to download.

Downloading Current Quotes with Master Investor

If your computer does not automatically connect to the internet when you launch a browser or email program then you will need to connect to the internet before attempting to download quotes with MI. AOL users should launch their AOL application to connect to AOL. Others should launch their internet dialer and connect to the internet. Once you are connected to the internet:

  • Click the Download Quotes button on MI's speed bar.
  • Choose one of the download sources such as "DOWNLOAD: Yahoo Finance "
  • Select the dates that will encompass the data to be downloaded. If you are downloading on a day when the market is open, use today date as an ending date and the date of the previous market close as the starting date.
  • Click the download button.

MI will access the internet, download and import quotes for all the ticker symbols that have been defined in your securities definitions. 

TROUBLESHOOTING:

If you are not getting all the quotes you think you should, check the following:

  • Make sure that none of your defined ticker symbols contain any embedded blank spaces (e.g., "GE B"). This will cause entire blocks of 20 stocks to not be downloaded.
  • Make sure your ticker symbols are correct. Index symbols and Option symbols tend to differ from one data service to another. Check with the data service to ensure you are using the correct symbols for those items.
  • Mutual fund quote for the current day are not generally available until well after the close of the market. Make sure your import dates reflect the availability of quotes for your mutual fund stocks.
  • Some stocks that are thinly traded may not have data every day.

Importing Quotes with Master Investor

MI is designed to reject records that may contain invalid or improperly formatted data. For this reason, there are several items that must be setup correctly to successfully import quotes. Master Investor Import Quotes Screen Sample

  • Ticker symbols in MI must precisely match the ticker symbols found in the file to be imported. Ticker symbols are entered on the stock/mutual fund definition screen ("Define" menu, "Stock - Mutual Fund - Index" option). One common mistake is to accidentally place a leading blank in front of the Ticker symbol. If the ticker symbol in MI has a leading blank it won't match the symbol found in the import file.
  • The format of the file being imported must match the format expected by MI. On the MI Import screen select the format that matches your import file by clicking the down arrow in the combination box.
  • The dates of quotes in the import file must be included within the range of dates entered on MI's import screen. MI rejects quotes that are outside the range of dates defined on the import screen. Some import files may contain quote times instead of dates or may not contain dates at all. If this is the case, MI assumes that the quotes is from the ending date of the range of dates entered on the import screen.

If you are unable to determine the format of an import file, just send us the file as an email attachment. We will examine the file to determine the appropriate setup.

Obtaining Historic Quotes On-Line

At present, there are 2 internet services that provide free historic prices that can be imported into Master Investor 2000.

Yahoo Finance

Free historical price quotes are available from Yahoo finance.  To download historic quotes:

  1. Use your internet browser to go to http://finance.yahoo.com
  2. Enter the ticker symbol, choose "Chart" from the pull down menu and click the "GET" button
  3. Choose the Historical Prices link below the displayed chart.
  4. On the historical prices display you may refine the query to obtain a different ticker symbol, a specific range of dates, daily, weekly or monthly prices, etc. After making selections click the "Get Data" button.
  5. Go to the bottom of the table and click the "Download Spreadsheet" Format link. Make a note of the file name and location where the file was saved. You will need this when importing the file into MI 2000. We recommend naming the file with the ticker symbol followed by .csv.
  6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to obtain quotes for additional time periods or different stocks.

These quotes may be imported into MI 2000 using the quote format named "IMPORT: Yahoo Historic" available in version 5.0.1.68. Importing Yahoo Historic quotes requires version 5.0.1.68 or above.

MSN Money Central

Free historical price quotes are available from MSN Money Central. To download historic quotes:

  1. Use your internet browser to go to http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/home.asp
  2. Under Stocks, choose the Quotes, Charts & News link
  3. Under Quotes, Charts & News choose the Charts link.
  4. Enter the ticker symbol and click Go
  5. When the chart is displayed, click the Customize Chart link
  6. On the customize chart screen set the range of dates you want and choose either daily or weekly from the pull down menu.  At the bottom of the customize chart screen, click the "Show Table" link
  7. On the Table screen, click the Download File link. Make a note of the file name and location where the file was saved. You will need this when importing the file into MI 2000.
  8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 to obtain quotes for additional time periods or different stocks

These quotes may be imported using the import format named "IMPORT: MS Money Central Historical" available in version 5.0.1.68. 

Note:  Prices displayed and downloaded for charting periods over 1 year reflect composite weekly prices.

Downloading current quotes stopped working. How can I fix it?

On September 4, 2007, Yahoo changed the location of their server for current quotes. The new location is download.finance.yahoo.com. To change this in either MI or OPPM choose

  1. Click the Download Quotes Button
  2. Select the Download Yahoo Finance download format.
  3. From the setup menu choose "Edit Current Format"
  4. Change the Download Host URL from "http://finance.yahoo.com" to "http://download.finance.yahoo.com"
  5. Click the Save button.