Not Updating Price Correctly (Yahoo)

[El Wealtho]

For at least the last couple of weeks, there has been a problem with the price updates using Yahoo and the latest version of FM.

I do not fully have a handle on the problem but what happens is the price change (from previous quote) often - but not always - appears as 0%. Historical Prices for the investment at Yahoo occasionally show that the closing price has in fact not changed between the two days. But often that is not the case, as for today and XEG.TO (for example). FM (today) seems not to be getting yesterday's close. Later in the day one can successfully retrieve the correct quote.

Upon further inspection today, the Yahoo Historical Price "close" on XEG.TO Apr 7 is 14.66; and on Apr 8 is 14.33. However, the Yahoo chart shows a close both days of 14.46 - which seems to be the number FM is picking up.

It seems it could be a problem with Yahoo or a problem with FM. Which is not clear.

[Mark]

Hi El Wealtho,

Both Yahoo and Yahoo (Historical) seem to be working properly. Historical prices may have a delay before they become available. To debug this, I would suggest looking at your actual recorded prices after a retrieve using the Data Register under the Data Type of "Prices". The % change can be causing added confusion, depending on the relative date. Looking at the actual pricing will help clarify what is actually retrieved. If you retrieve prices and aren't getting the expected prices, use your web browser, and go look on Yahoo to see if they have the expected price. FM will only be able to get whatever is available on Yahoo. If you see a price on Yahoo's website that FM is not retrieving, please let me know the specifics, like which exact server you're using, what the symbol is, and what you're getting versus expecting.

[El Wealtho]

This problem is proving to be difficult to describe.

I have now gone back now (it's about 4 AM ET) to retrieve the price on XEG.TO (for example) and FM has indeed retrieved the correct price. This is typical. Retrieval at about 9 PM ET will result in some odd prices being retrieved; correct closing price will be retrieved later.

The exact problem also occurred today with XGD.TO, XHY.TO and HXD.TO, to name a few others.

I tried to explain precisely the problem (which appears to be with Yahoo) in my original post. Please have another look and try to understand what I have written.

The Quote Server is Yahoo and I am retrieving only the current price, not historical prices. I have been using FM exactly the same way for several years without encountering this problem.

[Mark]

Hi El Wealtho,

I just checked on XEG.TO right now (9am PST) and it is retrieving properly from Yahoo. If you see it not retrieving properly, try at that time going to:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=XEG.TO

and scroll down to the lower/right area, where there is a link under "Toolbox" for "Download data (delayed)". Click on that link, and open up the downloaded .CSV file. Does it have the correct data? That is where FM is retrieving the price from, so if it isn't coming into FM from Yahoo, then it is probably wrong there on Yahoo at that time. So far, I haven't been able to reproduce a problem here though.

I have seen where some Yahoo servers are not reporting, and others are working fine. Depending on your location, you may be going to a different Yahoo server than me, when I'm testing. For example, if you open up a command prompt and type:

ping finance.yahoo.com

what IP address does it say it is pinging? For me, it reports: 209.191.96.197. You could try setting the IP address in your .hosts file, but before we go down that path it would be best if you can try the debug step listed above, to first verify the Yahoo server isn't reporting correctly.

[El Wealtho]

OK, today's experience with XGD.TO:

9:05 PM ET. FM retrieves 10.12 for Apr 10, the same as Apr 9 close.

Yahoo shows 10.12 as the last closing price both in "Summary" and in large font in "Historical Prices".

However, in the "Historical Prices" table, the Apr 10 closing is 10.35. This is likely the accurate closing, and later FM retrieval (several hours later, perhaps) will retrieve 10.35.

FWIW, the ping to finance.yahoo.com produced 106.10.199.11.

Many thx.

[Mark]

Hi El Wealtho,

Did you look at the "Toolbox / Download data (delayed)" CSV file I mentioned? The key is to download/look at that CSV file at the time you're getting the wrong price, to confirm if it is wrong on Yahoo too. FM is not getting the price from either the "Summary" or "Historical Prices" table. It is getting it from that "Toolbox / Download data (delayed)" link when using the "Yahoo" quote server, so you would want to check there.

If you'd like to try forcing finance.yahoo.com to a different one of their servers, you can add this line to your .hosts file:

216.115.110.118 finance.yahoo.com

That is the IP address of finance.yahoo.com from my site as of now.

[El Wealtho]

Under Toolbox>Download Data, the closing price is also the wrong one. So, apparently the problem lies with Yahoo (?). I have sent them a message about it.

I don't know how to alter a hosts file. But before trying this, perhaps at some point you could confirm whether the problem presents itself on the server you are using.

Many thx.

[Mark]

Hi El Wealtho,

Glad you confirmed the issue and reported it to Yahoo. Hopefully they can resolve it. I'm guessing the problem is common to all the Yahoo servers, but if you wanted to try a different one, you can find your .hosts file here:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts

You can edit it with any text editor, like Notepad, and add that line I mentioned at the very bottom of the file. After saving, try the ping again, to verify the change took place.

[El Wealtho]

A curious feature of this issue:

When the PRC icon is clicked, all the investments in the portfolio are updated except those of the investments experiencing this problem. However, showing the problematic investments' price graph and right-clicking "Retrieve selected price" does update the price (albeit, with the Yahoo-supplied, temporarily-incorrect price).

In case this helps: It is now 2345h ET and I downloaded the csv file from the "Toolbox". There is only one line in this file.

[Mark]

Hi El Wealtho,

I just now tested retrieving this quote from Yahoo, using both the PRC button, and right clicking and choosing "Retrieve Selected Price". Both methods worked the same, and properly updated the price being shown on Yahoo right now (15.20). This is also the same price shown in the Toolbox / Download Data link.

[El Wealtho]

I gather you're kind of tired of this problem. However, it still exists.

Same thing: HXD.TO (and some others), the CSV file is currently (1 AM ET) only one line.

The PRC does not update the price; right-clicking and retrieving the price does. I have no idea why or what is going on. But it's a significant problem that has persisted for some weeks now.

[El Wealtho]

Hmmm ... the problem did NOT present itself at today's update (about 10 PM ET).

(Could it have been the new price retrieve module?)

[Customer Support]

Due to vacation, technical support will be unavailable until Monday, May 4th. We will reply to your post on Monday.

[Mark]

Hi El Wealtho,

If you're still having problems retrieving a particular quote, please let me know the symbol and quote module version you're using.

If you can reproduce a case where using "Edit / Internet Retrieve / Prices..." consistently cannot update a price, but right mouse clicking and choosing "Edit / Retrieve Selected Price" does consistently work, please email me a backup file. We are not able to reproduce such a problem here, so maybe there is something specific with your data/options that would allow us to find an issue. Please note if this just happens occasionally, this may be due to network/server issues, but if it is something you can consistently reproduce, then we would like to investigate. To create a backup file, use "File / Backup..." and save a *.FMB backup file.

[El Wealtho]

I realize there are several components to this problem. Perhaps they are all at Yahoo's end. But it is really exasperating - particularly as I do not know what is going on with it ...

Today's experience:

It is now 0155 h ET. I used PRC to update the price of HXD.TO several times over the last 4 hours. It always reported 4.47.

Going to Yahoo's website on the quotes page the closing price for May 13 was 4.59. Downloading the CSV file, there was only one day's pricing in it (I suppose this is normal?) and that price was 4.47. I did a couple of right-click "Retrieve Selected Price" and got 4.47.

Literally a few seconds later I did a right-click "Retrieve Selected Historical Price" for May 11 - May 13 and got 4.59 for May 13 (!).

The quote servers for this investment are Yahoo and Yahoo Historical.

I went back a few minutes later and downloaded the CSV file again and it was the same - i.e. 4.47.

I realize this is slightly different than the experience I have reported earlier (which I had encountered on many investments over several weeks). Perhaps today's experience will shed some light on the problem ...