Dec
2
I’ve been developing an End-Of-Day (EOD) quote updater for my charting program Trader’s Workbench. I have the basic update functionality available from within the workbench, but as I felt that this might be something that other people could use, I would like to hear from YOU. What do you think about it?
Are people using this kind of tool (end-of-day quote updating tool) anymore or does every charting application out there now, come with a more or less obligatory quote update service? Is there anyone left doing their analysis on End-Of-Day data?
I do, and I need a reliable quote source so I developed Quotes Library.
I went with the development paradigm of less-is-more. I wanted a software that did one thing really good, and that had an interface that consisted of as few buttons as possible. I’m pretty happy with the result. Let me tell you about the characteristics.
Quotes Library does the following:
- Update your MetaStock Formatted Quotes from any source
- Recalculates stock quote when split occurs
- Export/Import from Excel
- Ability to create new files from scratch, filling them with data from any source
That’s all. I think that the most important part is in the first bullet above. Ability to update from any source. This means that if you live in India and are interested in your local markets, you can use this tool just as well as someone in the States interested in Nasdaq quotes or in Sweden.
How’s that possible?
I’ve developed this tool with a plug-in architecture where the structure of any webpage can be described in order to get the tool to work with the web source YOU prefer. So for any new source I need, I just add the rules to read the quotes from that webpage, and apply it to the already existing application, without recompiling the main application. Just releasing a new .DLL for the source in question. Pretty neat I think.
For instance, I use Yahoo when I add a new stock to follow. But the daily update of Yahoo is usually a little slower than my local source that only keeps today’s quotes. Then I can use etrade, Avanza, Nordnet or whatever source keeps today’s quotes, to get fresh quotes right at the close of the market, instead of having to wait for Yahoo to get today’s quotes.
So, the brilliance here is that without having to re-distribute the whole application, it could be used for any market, anywhere using any provider. You don’t even have to have an account with that provider which means the cost of using the Quotes Library tool is zero.
I don’t think it’s an immoral thing to do either, since Yahoo is distributing their quotes for personal use for free, and the other sources out there does the same but for today’s quotes. Not historical. All this tool is doing, is to make the collection of the already free quote data more efficient and automatic, instead of manually having to collect it.
That’s it. I’d really like your impressions of such a tool, and if you think it could be of interest to you. I appreciate it. Thanks.
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8 Responses to “Creating a Stock Quotes Manager”
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One thing you’ll find is that the free data out there is just not very good.
For example, how do you identify code changes with Yahoo? Typically what you will find is one code stops updating and the new code miraculously appears with the history (hopefully). But, your application needs to know that the old code is no longer trading and wipe it from the database.
Secondly, Yahoo’s data in various markets is limited to two decimal places. In Australia and also on securities traded on the OTCBB/OTC/Pink Sheets, the market trades in three decimal places on around 60% of its traded instruments. On a $0.07 stock, there’s a big difference between $0.001 and $0.01 !
Thirdly, Yahoo’s split data is inconsistent and poor too. eg. HRLY:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HRLY&t=5y
is missing a 3:2 split in 2001 (there’s plenty of other securities for which this has happened too).
Fourthly, stock spinoffs/demergers/in-specie distributions are shown as cash dividends. Anyone who participates in such spinoffs knows that there is capital gain tax rollover relief for such situations, but cash dividends are always treated as income.
Lastly, pretty much every free web site’s structure changes every few years. The more free data you support, the more software maintenance will be involved in keeping the software up-to-date.
If you’re just looking for an up-to-date quote then you can’t go too wrong with the free data available from Yahoo or your broker.
If you want super-accurate historical data for detailed backtesting then you’ll have to look further afield at commercial offerings. In short, you get what you pay for!
Cheers,
Richard.
Wow Richard, you wouldn’t happen to work in the financial data supplier business would you?
I for one would like that kind of tool. I pay for data today and would like not to. It would be interesting to try out this tool David.
Sign me up. I’d really like to see something like this.
I think it’s a really good idea. In fact I think it’s super. There are so many hustlers out there trying to make a buck from subscription to data. yuck.
In my case, I follow large cap markets anyways and the precision you can get from yahoos free data or from any online brokers out there like you are suggesting Dave, is way enough.
Thanks everyone for the answers so far.
Richard: I completely agree. However, I think your views are from that of a professional trader.
I’m thinking that this tool would be better suited for the happy trading amateurs like myself.
Also, with the approach I’m taking, I can change the format very quickly. Say Yahoo or any other source changes their format (which doesn’t happen that frequently). Instead of releasing a new version of the app, I just release a new version of that filter. Quite simple actually.
Since filters are easy to make, I can make filters for virtually any source out there.
So while it can never replace the kind of quote sources you are referring to, I think it can be a good enough “cheap” alternative.
Thanks for your comment.
Where is the dl?
I think the best thing to do here is to actually release this tool now, and see what the reaction is from that.
I believe it’s a really great idea. To be honest I think its really superb. There are so many hustlers out there trying to make a buck from subscription to data.