Index Tracking / Questions

[B2B_Investing]

Aloha Mark, et al,

In order to effectively compare the investment and portfolio performance of my subportfolios to market indices, I created a new subportfolio called indices and added securities (type = index) to it. The dozen or so “securities” have a purchase price of $1. (I understand this skews the total portfolio value, but it is minimal.) This is to keep both myself and the mutual funds honest -- sometimes I prefer a benchmark not in the fund reports -- and to centralize information to a common platform.

It seems that some of the symbols readily available via an internet search will not always return the desired data. Does anyone have thoughts/sources for benchmarks to retrieve the desired data. Below are a few examples:

DJIA (^DJIA) – historic retrieve only; price retrieve does not work
Dow Jones US Completion (DWCPF) – neither price nor historic retrieve work
S&P500 (^GSPC) – both price and historic retrieve work
S&P Small Cap 600 (^SP600 price retrieve only; historic retrieve does not work. ^SML does not work)
Russel2000 (IWM) – both price and historic retrieve work
Russell Midcap (IWR) – both price and historic retrieve work

I believe all testing was with Yahoo for both price and historic retrieves; however I do not think changing the server made a difference. I cannot say I exhaustively verified this for every possibility.

Any assistance would be appreciated!

(BTW this would be a wonderful modification. I am using the personal version and am considering upgrading to the professional version. I understand there is a limited ability to do this in the Advisor version in client reports but that is too much for my personal needs)

Thanks,

Jason

[Mark]

Hi Jason,

In general Yahoo is a good source for index quotes. Just use your web browser to visit their site, and look up the symbol they use. They use their own symbols, so to retrieve from Yahoo you have to use their symbols. See:

http://finance.yahoo.com/stock-center/

The one issue I'm aware of is with ^DJI. They have historical prices, but the current price won't update for this symbol. Instead you can use Bloomberg with the symbol of INDU:IND.

[B2B_Investing]

Thanks Mark. My method was a bit more random with Google looking up desired benchmark by name. I did not realize Yahoo used its own symbols.

Jason

[B2B_Investing]

Mark,

It looks like ^SP600 may also have issues similar to ^DJI.

When I tried to switch some of the Bloomberg ticker symbols and those servers it would not update. Any thoughts? Here is the text from the error log.

Retrieve Starting
Quote Module Version = 477
Retrieving from server: (BLOOMBERG-HISTORICAL)
Requested Historical Retrieve Dates: 2/9/2015 - 2/14/2015
Requesting: "SML"
Could not update any investments
WARNING: Server used but did not update any prices: (BLOOMBERG-HISTORICAL)

[Mark]

Hi Jason,

I see that ^SP600 retrieves from the current price from "Yahoo" okay, but there isn't historical data available for this symbol on Yahoo (Historical). You can verify the same with your web browser.

For the Bloomberg issue, there is no symbol SML available on Bloomberg. If you use your web browser and go to:

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets

and look up the symbol for the security you want, record that in Fund Manager. For example, there is a SML:SP, but nothing for just SML.

[Djobydjoba]

Hi,

"SML:IND" should work with Bloomberg, with data historical only (so with bloomberg Historical).

Regards.

[B2B_Investing]

Ok I see what happened now. When the symbol was not on Yahoo, I abandoned Google searches and went straight to the Russel and S&P Index pages.

http://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-600

If you click on "fact sheet" on the link above, the official S&P page gives the following tickers.

Tickers----------------------BLOOMBERG-------------REUTERS
TOTAL RETURNS-----------SPTRSMCP---------------.TR6GSPC
PRICE RETURNS------------SML-----------------------.SPCY

Unfortunately, it appears that McGrawHill does not keep this updated. Russel's were accurate about a month ago.

When I started looking for indices on Bloomberg, I found historical data only extended back 5 years and I was looking for more. A bit more search produced the following link from S&P which crosswalks many indices to ETFs.

https://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/downlo ... oducts.pdf

The closest proxy I could find (that provides current, historical data over 10 years and was on yahoo) was:

S&P 600
SPDR S&P 600 Small Cap ETF (SLY)

The end goal is to compare my actual portfolio performance to these indices as well as ETFs. While there have been articles ad nauseam about this in the press, I want to compare my actual performance--both investment and portfolio performance--with actual data on one platform. Just working to keep myself and the mutual fund managers honest and maximize my return.

Thanks for the guidance and assistance!

Jason