Yahoo and historical prices?

feffer777's Avatar

feffer777

13 Sep, 2017 08:05 PM

As dwg has posted, historical prices are no longer updated automatically by Yahoo through the Quotes and Exchange Rates extension in MD. This is an unwelcome development. I own 8-9 publicly traded securities and track a few others. In addition, I own some proprietary funds (TIAA-CREF) that never got historical prices. I manually downloaded the .csv file from their website.

Yesterday when doing my 2nd Qtr portfolio reconciliation (yes...I'm behind), I looked for a good way to get the missing historical data. I don't know yet whether Google will export historical prices as Yahoo did. So there may be better ways, but this is what I did. Go to the Yahoo quotes site and click on the "Historical" prices tab. Copy the symbol for your security into the search box and choose the proper result (usually the first one). Set the date parameters you want, then "Apply" and hit the "download" symbol. A choice between a download or open in a spreadsheet program will appear. I chose the spreadsheet (Excel or in my case, LibreCalc). When it opens, you may have to delete or move some columns around (quick and easy). You will see the dates go from oldest on top instead of the MD order (newest on top)...don't worry about that, they'll switch correctly during import as long as the Date header is on the column. Save the spreadsheet as .csv (text) and then import it into MD in the usual way. After the first one, it's easier. If you have a list of all your security symbols, just put them into the Yahoo search bar one by one and they'll come up; hit "Apply" (the date parameters you set the first time are kept); and download/open in excel.

So Yahoo may be preventing automation, but one can still get the prices from them. If someone has a better idea, please post. It's possible Google can be used? Also, one might open MD every day and that would get the "history" daily? My process would be a chore, but doable if one only wanted to bother once a quarter or so.

  1. 1 Posted by Ian O on 14 Sep, 2017 07:57 AM

    Ian O's Avatar

    Hi,

    You're absolutely right, manually downloading your prices from Yahoo should work without issue. This is likely the most appropriate work around for those experiencing issues getting their rates into Moneydance and I'd like to thank your for raising this point on the forum. As you have pointed out it does involve a fair amount of work but until we have found a new service to supply prices via automatic download, this should hopefully fit the bill.

    However, there may be other customer who have further suggestion in this regard so I'll leave this discussion public and open.

    Ian O
    Infinite Kind Support

  2. 2 Posted by dwg on 14 Sep, 2017 10:00 AM

    dwg's Avatar

    Google seems to be more US centric, so probably will not be of much use for those outside the U.S.

    I have had problems with prices as far back as 2012 with some prices getting zeroed out. So I have not used the historical pricing option to prevent the problem (some stocks only had daily prices and no history on Yahoo so got overwritten with zeros when it tried to get historical data).

    I open Moneydance each day Monday to Friday, at least for a few minutes to allow it to download daily prices, as such I have been building a history of prices by doing this, so now I have at least 5 years worth of historical prices. It is just something that has become part of my daily routine so not a big deal, especially since I also check my email once a day.

  3. 3 Posted by feffer777 on 14 Sep, 2017 06:47 PM

    feffer777's Avatar

    Thx Ian, there are lots of smart MD users, so I too hope others will comment.

    @dwg/Ian, I've just become aware of this issue and haven't had time to test whether Google will bring in historical prices like Yahoo used to...at least for the US markets. Do you know?

  4. 4 Posted by priggall on 03 Nov, 2017 06:23 AM

    priggall's Avatar

    It appears that downloading daily prices from Yahoo has now stopped as well!

    Since my portfolio is international (Australian, US, Euro and UK) the daily update has been an absolute necessity to keep track of things.

    What alternative service is there and is the Quotes and Exchange Rates Extension going to be updated?

  5. 5 Posted by feffer777 on 06 Jan, 2018 12:26 AM

    feffer777's Avatar

    On 09/14/2017 12:57 AM, Ian O wrote:

    Tried to login today to see if there's been any updates on this issue. I
    can login but get to this page <http://help.infinitekind.com/welcome>
    that asks me to respond to an email infinitekind (just) sent. And if I
    didn't receive the email (I didn't) to click a link
    <http://help.infinitekind.com/users/resend_activation_email?email=feffer777%40yahoo.com>
    on the page to have the email resent. When I do, I get this deadend page
    <http://help.infinitekind.com/users/resend_activation_email?email=feffer777%40yahoo.com>.
    If I try to directly to discussions, I'm brought back to the first page
    <http://help.infinitekind.com/welcome>. So a catch 22...can't get to
    discussions! Also the first page says, I recently changed my email
    address which is NOT true.

    Wondering what is happening? I know Yahoo was massively hacked and I did
    change my pw at least 3x. The URL to your pages "looks" OK, but could I
    be getting misdirected? Possibly to a counterfeit site looking for my
    user/pw? Could you have been hacked?

    Trying to do my year-end books, re-organize my portfolio, and make
    several changes, so I would like (need) to get this going quickly. I'm
    using this previous email which I know was OK, to communicate with
    Infinitekind. Particularly with Ian if possible whom I've had past
    communication with, and trust.

    thx,
    Ron Pepper

  6. 6 Posted by feffer777 on 06 Jan, 2018 12:33 AM

    feffer777's Avatar

    To Infinitekind,

    My previous email probably went into the discussion thread where it does
    NOT belong. However, as stated I'm having issues logging in. Please take
    it out of the thread, but reply to me concerning the issue. Sorry for
    using this method of communication, but I'm a bit worried about a hack.

    Thank you
    Ron Pepper

  7. 7 Posted by feffer777 on 06 Jan, 2018 07:52 AM

    feffer777's Avatar

    OK, the login issue is related to security. Both Firefox and Chrome now
    notice whether login and other sensitive pages are in the insecure http
    form (instead of secure https) and warn the user that the site is
    insecure. I'm pretty sure this is why login results in the dead-end
    described earlier.

    Again, I apologize for posting this here, but I don't think I can reach
    the bug report site.

    Please look into this issue, and email me back. Also delete this and my
    previous 2 notes from the thread.

    Sincerely,
    feffer

  8. System closed this discussion on 07 Apr, 2018 08:00 AM.

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