Downloading & Importing Price Quotes
Current and historic price and volume data is available from a wide variety of sources. These include the internet, on-line services such as CompuServe and AOL as well as others who provide historic price information on diskette. Formats for over 20 popular services are pre-defined in MI.
Downloading Quotes
Because the internet is ever changing, we recommend that you check our web site at http://www.owlsoftware.com for current information on supported quote servers and any special considerations you may need when downloading quotes from the internet. Information specific to supplied download and import specifications is provided in Appendix A.
If your system does not automatically connect to the internet when you launch your internet browser then you will need to manually connect to the internet before downloading quotes. NOTE: AOL Users should connect to AOL using the AOL software before clicking the download button.
To download quotes:
- Click the Download/Import Quotes button. Choose one of the Data Formats that begin with “Download” (e.g., “DOWNLOAD-Yahoo Finance”). When you have chosen a format that MI can download, the button caption will change from “Import” to “Download.”
- After selecting a download format, set the “Accept Quotes Beginning From” and “Through” dates then Click the button labeled Download. Note: Quotes containing dates that are not within the entered dates will be rejected.
- If you are not already connected to the internet, your dialer dialog box will be displayed. Select the service and enter your user name and password. Click the connect button. The program will dial out and retrieve the quotes. HINT: The program does not disconnect from the internet after downloading quotes.
- When the program has finished retrieving the quotes it will import the quotes and display a message indicating the number of quotes that were successfully imported and the number that were appended (i.e., new data records).
Importing Quotes
To import quotes, click the Download/Import button on the Quotes & Splits page. Note, there are several items that must be set up correctly to successfully import quotes. The Import Quotes screen will be displayed with the following information.
Table VII-2: Import Quotes Screen
Data Field Description
Data Format Select a data format that begins with “IMPORT” that applies to the data file to be imported. Note: Import format names that end in “.L” and “.C.” have special meaning. See Format Name under Defining Import Formats below.
Accept quotes dated From - Through
Enter the date span of the quotes that you want to import. Only those quotes dated between the specified beginning and ending dates will be imported. The default is the current date.
Import File: Enter the file name that contains the price data to be imported. Alternatively, click the Browse button to display a standard file dialog box where you may select the file to be imported. The default is the last file imported.
Once the above information has been entered, click the Import button. During the import process, MI will display the quotes as they are loaded. When the entire file has been processed, MI will display a message box with the count of records that were actually loaded into the database.
Defining Download & Import Formats
Download and import formats can be added and edited as needed to support changes in data sources and new data sources. To add a new format or edit an existing format click the Download/Import Quotes button on the Quotes and Charts page. To edit an existing format, select that format from the Data Formats drop down menu.
The Setup menu (located in the top left corner of the Download / Import Quotes screen provides access to the format definitions.
Options in the Setup menu include:
Add Delimited Format: Adds a new delimited format. Delimited formats are for data files that have their fields seperated by a delimiting character such as a comma or a tab.
Add Tabular Format: Adds a new tabular format. Tabular formats describe data files that have data in fixed columns that are seperated by spaces.
Edit Current Format: Edits the format that is selected in the Data Formats field.
Delete Current Format: Deletes the format that is selected in the Data Formats field.
The following data must be entered on the import format screen. Import Format Definition Screen
Data Field Description
Format Name: Enter a descriptive name for the data format.Special Format for London Exchange Quotes: Format names that end in “.L” (period followed by capital L) are reserved for importing London Exchange quotes from some services that output the quotes in units of British pence. Special code has been added to MI to convert these quotes from pence to decimal pounds. The conversion takes place only when both the Format Name and Ticker Symbol end in “.L”.
Special Format for Quotes in Cents/Pence: Format names that end in “.C” (period followed by capital C) are reserved for importing quotes that are expressed in cents. Special code has been added to MI to convert these quotes from cents to decimal amounts (i.e., the value is divided by 100).
Date Format: The purpose of the Date Format entry is to tell MI how to interpret date character strings so that the program knows which characters refer to the month, day and year. The date format entry is actually a template that uses Y’s refer to the year, M’s for the month and D’s for the day. This is best explained by example.
If Dates look like Enter
10/30/93 MM/DD/YY
10/30/1993 MM/DD/YYYY
30/10/93 DD/MM/YY
30.10.93 DD.MM.YY
931030 YYMMDD
10/30 MM/DD
Starting and Ending Columns (Tabular Formats)
Field Numbers (Delimited Formats)
When defining a tabular format you must tell MI the text column in which each data field starts and ends. If a field does not appear in the data file, enter a zero for the starting and ending column for that field.
To determine the starting and ending columns of each field, use an ASCII text editor such as Notepad to examine the file. Make a note of the column in which each data field starts and ends.
When defining a delimited format you must tell MI number of the field in which each data item appears. If a field does not appear in the data file, enter a zero for the field number.
To determine the field numbers, examine the file using an ASCII text editor. Count from the left starting with one and add one to the field number each time a delimiter character is encountered.
Alternate Close This entry is used to define an alternate position for the closing price. The alternate close field is used when the number of fields in the record is less than the Total Fields Per Record definition below
Some data files change the format of the data depending on the type of security that is being downloaded. Most commonly, a data service might use a different format for mutual funds than it uses for stocks.
Volume Divided by: Depending on the data service you use, the share volume may be listed as the exact number of shares, hundreds of shares, thousands of shares, etc. The volume divisor allows you to convert the listed share volume to the volume in hundreds of shares that MI expects.
Reject Invalid Dates Depending on the time-of-day when a file was downloaded, some data services substitute the time for the date. Normally MI would reject such a record as having an invalid date. However, if you enter “N” in this field (i.e., do not to reject invalid dates), these records will be accepted by MI and assigned a date equal to the Ending Date.
Total Fields per Record: Enter the number of data fields in a record that does not use the alternate close. Hint: the alternate close is used whenever the record contains fewer fields than the total entered here. You can force MI to use the alternate close by entering a number of fields greater than exist in the records
to be imported.
ASCII Value of Delimiter: Enter the ASCII decimal value of the character used to separate fields in the record. ASCII decimal values are listed in the back of most DOS manuals.
Download Host URL: The internet address of the site where the quotes are being downloaded. Hint: This is the basic http address.
Download Command Prefix: The portion of the html command used to display quotes that preceeds the ticker symbol(s)
Download Command Suffix: The portion of the html command used to display quotes that follows the ticker symbols.
Max Quotes: The maximum number of quotes that can be retrieved in a single batch. MI will continue processing batches until all quotes have been downloaded. Note: where multiple quotes can be retrieved, MI assumes that the quotes are shown on the html command line seperated by plus “+” signs. If your service uses another character then set the max quotes to one.
Hint: Some data files that appear to be tabular (text in fixed columns) are actually tab delimited.
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