History Price Retrieval

[divinest]

Hi Mark, For the historical price retrieval the dates do not seem to go back to the last retrieved date. For example, if i don't login for a week, and do a update current prices and then do a history retrieve the dates do not appear to go back the last week when the prices were updated. Is that expected behavior ? Thanks!

[Mark]

Hi divinest,

When you retrieve from most historical servers you are prompted for a date range to update. It will go back as far as you request, as long as the server has those prices. Some historical servers go back a fixed amount of days from the current date, as documented for that server.

[divinest]

Thanks Mark But how does fm get the default start and end date ranges for retrieval
If you see the attached image, as long as i don't do a selected current price retrieve the default dates are set to the last price retrieval. However, if i do the retrieve current prices, then even though the quotes weren't retrieved for last few days FM reverts to default date of today.
In essence was i would expect is, the current price retrieval should not impact of update the default dates for the history price retrieval.

[Mark]

Hi divinest,

The date range defaults to the day after your last price retrieve, either current or historical. So, if you do a current price retrieve today from Yahoo, tomorrow the default for a historical price retrieve would start from tomorrow's date. The idea is that if you've retrieved prices for a particular date, you don't need to retrieve prices for that date again.

[divinest]

Okay thanks that makes sense - Lets say if i did not login for a month and updated any quotes and want historical quotes, then the smart way is to run the historical quotes retrieval first before i do the current price, that way we won't have gap in quotes or have to remember what the last history quotes i have updated.

[Mark]

Yes, that makes sense, and would work as you desire.

[aviator]

Hi Mark,

No dog in this fight, but there is one annoying behavior with dates: It appears retrieval date defaults are reset based on a price retrieve from *any* portfolio. (Reset meaning that the default dates change to today minus one day, or whatever algorithm FM uses.)

For example, let's say I have one portfolio with 5 sub-portfolios. I do a price retrieval on just one of the five sub-portfolios, doesn't matter if I'm doing current or historical. When I go to retrieve prices for any of the 4 that have not yet been updated, the retrieval dates on the four are as if I'm retrieving prices for the one I've already retrieved.

A better solution, IMHO, is to track price retrieval dates at the sub-portfolio level, perhaps at the security level (if I retrieve prices for just one security, that should not reset the dates globally). There should also be a distinction between current and historical retrieve dates.

Just my $.02.

[Djobydjoba]

Hello,

I find the current behavior not helpful too. I would prefer a default date range, always the same, like the last 30 days (because it is a common period of time, IMHO suited for a default date range).

I am not fond of an "algorithm" trying to guess what the default date range has to be, because most of the time it misses the target.

Or, could be interesting, scanning all the investments involved in the retrieve, and find the older last price of all, and set this price for the start date. For example:

InvA: last price recorded is 03/03/2018
InvB: last price recorded is 02/01/2019
InvC: last price recorded is 20/11/2018

= default date range is 03/03/2018 -> today

[Mark]

Hi aviator and Djobydjoba,

Thanks for the feedback. Aviator, you are right, _any_ price retrieve resets this default to the current date. It has worked differently in the past, and we changed it due to other feedback.

I suspect there is no single algorithm that will meet everyone's needs and how they use the program. Maybe an option would be to have some easy way for the user to choose among different starting dates either by program option, keyboard shortcut in the "From" date range control, or a combo drop-down. I lean towards keyboard shortcuts... For example, maybe if you typed "w" this would set the "from" date back 1 Week. We could use "l" for earliest Last recorded price of the investments about to be retrieved, etc.

[divinest]

Keyboard shortcuts it would work great thanks

[Djobydjoba]

Great if the user could choose, the more flexible the better!

And it would be nice if the choice could be memorized for all the Historical Dates Retrieve dialogs of the same retrieving session, when several quote servers are in play. And, why not, after a restart of Fund Manager too.

[aviator]

Agree with Djobydjoba, user choice offers ultimate flexibility. His suggestion of finding the oldest retrieval date in a sub-portfolio is interesting and, IMHO, the best solution (see the last part of his post).

[Djobydjoba]

aviator, I think that was the Mark's proposal too:

We could use "l" for earliest Last recorded price of the investments about to be retrieved, etc.

[aviator]

My only negative comment is that I don't use keyboard shortcuts. I can see why Mark would find them useful for solutions we've discussed, but I'd prefer less pointing and clicking (or tapping on keyboards, as it were) and more intelligence built in, where users can set parameters to fine-tune date behavior.

[Mark]

Thanks for the feedback. That makes sense. It is a balancing act between making too many user options, and coming up with a solution that works best for most people. I do like the idea of starting the retrieve at the earliest last price recorded for the investments being retrieved.