There is a small piece of unfinished business in my series for replacing Microsoft Money. After giving my requirements and looking at Quicken, GnuCash, and Moneydance, I came upon two OFX scripts for downloading transactions directly from the financial institutions, outside of Microsoft Money.
Those scripts will take care of the transactions. They will also update the prices for the securities held in the investment accounts that provide transaction download. However, if you have holdings in accounts that do not provide transaction download, the prices for those holdings are still not updated.
With the help of a book from the library, Learning Python, and a lot of Googling, I came up with a new script that gets the quotes from Yahoo! and writes a dummy OFX file for importing into Microsoft Money. Being a Python newbie, I’m sure the script can be made much more elegant, but what I have now works.
I tested it with Microsoft Money 2006. The online service in Money 2006 already expired. I created a new Investment account in Money called Dummy Investment. I ran the script, which imported a dummy statement with the current prices into the Dummy Investment account. Because the number of shares is set to zero (thanks to suggestion from John Brinnand), the import will not add any shares to the Dummy Investment account. It only updates the prices for your other accounts.
The script is very easy to use. You put the ticker symbols in two lists, one for stocks and one for mutual funds. Depending on how you set them up in Money, ETFs can be either stocks or mutual funds.
stocks = [“AMZN”,
“GOOG”,
“YHOO”]funds = [“VTSMX”,
“VBMFX”]
You still need either ActivePython or Python. Then you just create a shortcut with
python quotes.py
Double click on the shortcut. Follow the prompts with a few more clicks and you are done.
Because it simulates importing a statement from a broker, Microsoft Money will only update the prices once per day. It’s best to run the script after the market closes. If you run the script more than once when the market is open, only the first price update will get into Money; you will not get the closing price.
With the Python scripts that download transactions and price quotes, I intend to use Money past its official expiration date.
Update: Since this was first published, other software developers created PocketSense and hleOfxQuotes, which greatly improved upon the rudimentary script here. Please consider using those. I use PocketSense now.
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Wai Yip Tung says
Very cool. I don’t use Microsoft Money myself. In case anyone uses Excel to analyze their stock portfolio I also have a piece of script that updates the quote in Excel. Anyone are welcome to use it or adapt it for their need.
http://tungwaiyip.info/blog/2008/06/22/python_stock_quote
DK says
TFB: I appreciate very much the work you put into making Money work for us poor souls left in the dink by Microsoft. I followed your instructions for downloading stock quotes and am getting the QUOTES.OFX . However my Money Plus refuses to process it: “the file you attempted to import appears to be invalid or contains corrupt data. Please download the file again. If this problem continues, contact your financial institution.” I have created a “DUMMY INVESTMENT” account which contains the stocks in the stocks and funds lists used in quotes.py. Any suggestions on how to get to the details of the Money error statement or how to proceed? Thanks a lot!
Harry Sit says
DK – Do you get the same error if you use the script as-is with the sample stocks and funds? Or do you only get this error with your own lists of stocks and funds? If it’s the latter, please send me your lists via the contact form. Thanks.
DK says
TFB: The error did not occur with your original script QUOTES.PY. The error occurs with my list of stocks and funds: ADP, IBM, PG and VTSAX. I tried to import QUOTES.OFX with Dummy Investment empty and also with Dummy Investment containing the four stocks/fund. In both cases Money refused to import the file. My list of stocks/fund exist already in other of my Money accounts.
Thank you for your response. DK
Harry Sit says
DK – The “&” character in Proctor & Gamble is throwing it off. Fixed. If you download the revised script, it should work now.
DK says
TFB: Thank you so very much for the correction to the original QUOTES.PY script. It works like a charm now! DK
Steve says
Hi TFB,
Nice article. Was headed down the same path myself (Money user for 5 years, “old school” record keeper) and looking into GnuCash and OFX synchronization alternatives when I came across your site. Very cool.
I had a couple of questions. I downloaded your script to play around with it, and used it as-is. The resulting OFX imports without problems. I then tried tweaking the price of AMZN manually to see if a re-import would update the prices. The import result indicated the correct price, but when I then went to view Portfolio Mgr the first price was still displayed. Thinking that the problem was probably that the quote price still had the same date/timestamp, I tried changing this in the OFX file and then re-importing. Same result.
I am mainly interested in keeping quotes alive — except for one bank account, I manually enter all other financial transactions — so I am interested in confirming that this works. I had an old copy of MSM 2006 around so I installed it on another computer and repeated the above experiment. Same result. I also tried running the script, then disconnecting my network cable before running the import.
Another odd piece of behavior with this second attempt was that although Money correctly indicated that I had services that had expired 387 days ago, it still updates the equity quotes! Any idea why that would occur? I thought online quotes expired with the rest. Somewhat perplexed, but looking forward to solving the problem.
Thanks again for a great site.
Steve
Harry Sit says
Steve – MS Money 2006 is still updating quotes. I also saw that with my test copy. I don’t expect it to last forever though. As long as Microsoft continues to provide quotes, we don’t have to run this script. When they stop, we will have something ready.
I suspect the online update from Money is overwriting the imported prices. If you have a software firewall like ZoneAlarm, block Money from accessing the Internet and then test the imports. If not, I propose this test:
1) Don’t open Money. Put a “#” in front of the last line in the script “os.startfile(fileName)”. Run the script. Rename the quote.ofx file to quote1.ofx.
2) Wait a day and run the script again. Rename the quote.ofx file to quote2.ofx.
3) Disconnect computer from the Internet. Run Money. Import quote1.ofx, then import quote2.ofx.
4) Go to the Investment in question. Click on Update prices -> Update manually. Look at the price history. If there are two prices, it proves the imports are updating the prices correctly.
Repeat this test. Instead of waiting a day between two downloads, wait an hour. I expect the price history to show the price in quote2.ofx.
Steve says
Hi TFB,
Don’t have ZoneAlarm but I tried Windows Firewall. Didn’t seem to block so I proceeded with approach #2:
I created a dummy account with the stocks and funds from the default script. With Money closed I generated 4 OFXs files, one about every 10 minutes. I then disconnected the network cable and opened Money.
I initialize the account using default script. Amazon has a price of 90.07. The first time I open the OFX file it asks which account I wish to import into. Subsequently it does not and just displays the “Import Complete” dialog. I then see “you have xxx statements to read” where one of them is the dummy account I created. However, in the “Last downloaded” column it does not indicate the current date. If I select the dummy account I go to the the “Review investment holdings” screen, where I see the updated prices for the sample stocks and funds (e.g., AMZN is 90.49); the date at the top (in the label “These positions were reported by your broker on your statement, dated …”) is still not the current date (I am running these tests on 9/18 and both dates I mentioned above are 9/17).
If I then click Finish to end reconciliation, then Done to exit the “you have xxx statements to read” screen, it takes me out to the main screen. If I go to Portfolio Mgr I still see the same price as before.
Anytime that I perform the import with a different OFX I see the updated price in the “Review investment holdings” screen, but the updated price never makes it to Port Mgr.
I also performed your check:
4) Go to the Investment in question. Click on Update prices -> Update manually. Look at the price history. If there are two prices, it proves the imports are updating the prices correctly.
Here it is not displaying the updated price either.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Steve
Steve says
Also I should say that I performed these tests with MSM Plus Deluxe — I should probably repeat with MSM 2006, as that is what you are using?
Cheers,
Steve
Harry Sit says
Steve – Thank you for helping me test and refine the script. Your tests showed that only the first price update on a day went in. I’m less concerned about that. What about price updates on different days? If I can get one price update per day, that’s good enough for me. Another issue is the as-of date seems to be off by one day. Let me look into that.
Harry Sit says
Steve – I fixed the as-of date. Please get the new script. Because it simulates importing a statement from a broker, Microsoft Money will only update the prices once per day. It’s best to run the script after the market closes. If you run the script more than once when the market is open, only the first price update will get into Money; you will not get the closing price.
Steve says
Hi TFB,
Thanks for the update. It’s great to have someone interested in keeping this app functional who also has a great resource for discussing it and other financial matters. I will try out the update and let you know.
I am also looking into what alternatives there are to MS’s Stock Screener tool on the Money website. I am talking about the ActiveX version available when using IE; the functionality is significantly reduced when using other browsers. The SS is also going away — even sooner I’m afraid (Nov 09). Any thoughts on alternatives?
Cheers,
Steve
Harry Sit says
Steve – I don’t know the answer to your question about the stock screener. I heard you get some of the Morningstar premium features for free if you register at T. Rowe Price’s web site (you don’t have to open an account, just register with user name and password).
John says
The script seems to generate something strange when the mutual fund is a money market mutual fund.
I added the Hewitt Money Market Fund (HEWXX) to the list of mutual funds, and the OFX file generate caused Money to bark a problem with the data received.
The problem looks to be this:
0.05%
0.05%
Instead of returning the proper share price of $1.00 for money market mutual funds, Yahoo! returns the 7-day yield. There doesn’t appear to be any way around this problem. The Yahoo! CSV download URL format has two options to return the price: l and l1. Both of these return the 7-day yield and not the share price.
I suppose one option would be to recognize that any mutual fund ending in “XX” is a money market mutual fund (e.g. HEWXX, TPCXX, FDRXX, SPAXX, FSLXX, etc.) and always populate the UNITPRICE and MKTVAL fields with “1.00”.
Microsoft Money must have some way to make this determination or maybe the Money quote server just returns “1.00” for the price of money market mutual funds.
For now, it doesn’t seem like a problem to just omit HEWXX from my list of money market mutual funds in the script.
Thanks for the excellent work. I’m using Microsoft Money 2001 and really have no desire to move to an alternative.
Harry Sit says
John – Thank you for your note. I’d say just leave the money market funds out. You know the price is going to be 1.00. Keep updating the price with 1.00 doesn’t really do much.
Jeff says
Great information! I was searching for a Money replacement, specifically just for the online update ability (and also the debt reduction planner too, I guess) and like you say, why use another product if you can get the online update to work! Thanks!!
Tom says
Thanks for the quotes script, you save me having to re-enter 5+ years of transaction data. A real life saver, note to Bill Gates … thanks for nothing !
WHB says
Thanks for setting up this script. I downloaded PYthon and your script and then set up a shortcut with “C:\Python26\python.exe quotes.py” and double clicked on the shortcut. A command screen came up briefly, but no prompts. I could not find that it had written any .ofx file. Is there something else I need to do?
Harry Sit says
WHB – Make sure the “Start In” folder for your shortcut is the folder where you saved the quotes.py file.
WHB says
Yes my “Start in” for the shortcut is C:\Python26 with a Target of C:\Python26\python.exe quotes.py and the script is in c:\python26.
Harry Sit says
WHB – Open a command prompt. Navigate to that directory. Execute the command manually and see what happens. Did you remove the .txt extension from the downloaded script?
WHB says
Yep, forgot to remove the .txt extension. So I had quotes.py.txt. It works now. BTW, Yahoo picks up Berkshire B as BRKB, Money used to be BRK.B. That was another issue. Works great. Thanks much.
Mat says
On top of your excellent work TFB, do you know how exchange rates could be used to update Microsoft Money’s currency table? I added “CADUSD=X” to my Stocks list, which successfully updated a dummy “CAD to USD” investment. Unfortunately, it fails to update the value of my accounts that use CAD currency (bank, credit cards).. Any ideas on how to automate this?
Otherwise, manually updating currencies can be done by selecting Tools > Settings and then choosing Program Settings > Update Currencies.. but it’d be great to have it done automatically, once again.
Harry Sit says
Mat – Sorry, I don’t know how the exchange rates update inside Money.
dan says
I’ve been a Quicken user for over a decade. Have more than 30 years of investment data in a Quicken 2005 DB. Don’t use my computer for much more than investment tracking, email and internet…Hence older machine and OS.. I’m once again faced with a Quicken (forced) update to get online stock quotes. This one would push me into a new machine and OS…do you have any idea of how to get the quotes updated in Quicken like your solution for Money. I’m tired of being extorted by Quicken.
Harry Sit says
dan – Sorry, you can’t do the same with Quicken. Intuit closed off this opportunity. As I showed with the screenshot in the previous post, if you try to import an OFX file, Quicken phones home and refuses to cooperate.
Julee says
Thanks for all of this information. I was wondering if there is a way to modify the quotes.py script so that I can get the prices from a previous day. I like to have updates for the last day of the monthand am sometimes out of town. Older versious of money could not get historical prices but the one I have been using has the capability to do so.
Bob says
This could be a useful workaround.
It may not work for foreign stocks while downloads are still enabled, e.g. Money (and MSN Money) uses AU:BHP and Yahoo Finance uses BHP.AX as ticker symbols for the same stock.
Do you know if Money 2005 Deluxe can update prices from a QIF file? Quicken can do this if the file is similar to
!Type:Prices
AMZN,132.97,”11/13/2009″
YHOO,15.93,”11/13/2009″
[etc]
^
Also the very useful MSN Investment Toolbox on moneycentral.msn.com was discontinued recently. Do you know of a replacement?
tom says
I’ve updated my script with some user entertainment …. added the print statements as indicated in the following locations.
if __name__==”__main__”:
print ‘Start Program’
.
.
.
for ticker in stocks:
print ‘Retriving quote for {0}’.format(ticker)
.
.
.
for ticker in funds:
print ‘Retriving quote for {0}’.format(ticker)
.
.
.
.
os.startfile(fileName)
print ‘End Program’
Daniel says
Hi TFB,
I’ve tried the script and importing the dummy broker statement works. I was able to view the imported statement but the quotes could not be updated into the other accounts. Once I get into the portfolio view, the prices are not updated. I’m using Money 2002. I’ve also tried clicking” Finish” to end reconciliation after viewing the statement but the price was not updated. Is there any changes that I can do in the script to update the price in Money 2002?
John says
Super job!
Saved me from paying $20 for the 2007 version just to get this lost stock-quote functionalty!
Some suggestions for future versions:
a) An msi installer, inf, bat, etc.
b) “You need to be connected to the Internet for this installation.”
c) “Unable to find Python on your system. Directing you to their download webpage.”
d) “Unable to find MS Money on your system. This product is only used wth MS Money.”
e) Why have all users change the filename from “quotes.py.txt” to “quotes.py”? Just put “quotes.py” on your server vice something that we all have to rename.
f) I didn’t need to create a shortcut for anything. Just download the quotes.py.txt file, start a Dos prompt and rename it (Only way I could find to do it), download and install Python, and then double-click the quotes.py file (which associates with Python).
g) Need some kind of error-handler. If the script stops because it can’t find a particular stock, the script should stop, wait for user acknowledgement, then shutdown, not just shutdown by itself.
h) It couldn’t find the stock CTDB and the mutual fund FRIFX, so it shut down when it got to those. If anyone knows how to update those, please let me know.
i) Incorporating Tom’s user messages is a must, otherwise alot is happening behind the scenes wth no statuses. Thanks, Tom!
Other than that, once the quotes.py file was fnally set up, it created the quotes.ofx file and then brought it into MS Money. That step was just plain cool.
Thanks TFB for taking the time to share this with us!
John says
Hello.
Any ideas as to why even after you run ths script, the “Last updated” column in PortFolio Manager doesn’t change? Mine still says “8/29/2008” and “8/31/2008” for my stocks/MFs.
??
Harry Sit says
John – Please feel free to add any enhancement as you’d like. It uses Yahoo! for quotes. Yahoo! has CTDB as CTDB.OB. It’ll probably work if you use the symbol CTDB.OB. Money does not consider this as updating quotes. It’s importing a statement from a broker, which has the desirable side effect of updating the quotes for the securities in the brokerage statement.
G says
I got it all working except BRK.B. I see the note that it is called something different by yahoo and tried both BRKB and BRK-B, but to no avail. Do I have to change it on the Money side? thx
John says
All,
I found this easier way to get the stocks updated without the need for scripts:
1) In Windows, change your clock’s date/time back to (for me) Dec 2007 (sometime before your updating functionality ended).
2) Start up MS Money. Go to Tools>Internet Updates>Update now.
3) All your stuff will update to the current (Jan 2010) date.
4) Then change your system clock back to the current date/time.
5) Your “Last Updated” in Portfolio Manager also gets the correct info this way.
HTH!
Sunny says
John…. This won’t work after MS stops providing quotes at the backend though … which is early next year………… right ?
CD says
Rolling back the clock works great (for now) but it did mess w/my monthly reports even after resetting to today. Needed to close Money & reboot, that seemed to do the trick.
Thanks all the work & suggestions.
CD
NYC
David says
TFB,
When I ran this the first time, I associated the quotes file with a real account by mistake, and now I need to associate it with the Dummy Account. Do you know how I can change the association?
Thanks for the script!
Harry Sit says
David – Go to that real account and remove/disable online banking from the account. Do the import again and associate it with the dummy account this time.
Jeff says
How does Money know what quotes have been downloaded? Does the ticker symbol need to match only, or both the name and the symbol, or??
I get a “received investment positions for DUMMY”, but the quotes don’t appear when I review the price history. I’m using MS Money 2000.
Thanks.
Harry Sit says
Jeff – The ticker symbols need to match. The names don’t matter. You put in the script a list of ticker symbols you have in your real accounts. When the prices for the securities in the dummy account are updated, so are those for your real accounts.
Jason J says
Thank you very much for this script. This will save me so much time and allow me to continue using MS Monday Plus.
If you know of a way to add a proxy, please let me know.
Thanks
-Jason
Jeff says
Thanks TFB. It turns out Money 2000 doesn’t like the UNITS to be 0 in the OFX file. Otherwise it just ignores the updates. I labelled my DUMMY account as a WATCH account so it doesn’t affect my investments and put the UNITS to 1 and now it works like a charm.
Thanks again,
Jeff
Lee Simmons says
Got here by googling the problem–no more live quotes in my Money Plus portfolios. Looks like you have come up with a fix, but it also looks like you have to be something of a programmer to use it. Any chance you could write a program for us poor souls who would like to get downloading capability back? It would be worth more to me than the price of a new Quicken (I hate it!) program.
There really have to be a few thousand folks like me–enough of a market perhaps to make it worth your while.
Harry Sit says
Lee – The transaction download script requires more work but this price quote download script is very easy. You just follow these simple steps:
1) Install Python (either link in the post will work)
2) Download quotes.py.txt. Rename to quotes.py.
3) Edit quotes.py with your list of ticker symbols.
4) Create a shortcut to quotes.py on your desktop. Double click on it. Done.
David says
TFB,
Regarding your response #40 above, how can I disable/remove online banking from the account? I don’t see any checkbox for that? I poked around quite a bit, but was unable to find it. Thanks again for your help.
David
CD says
TFB,
I’ve been following this thread for about a month & feel I need to voice my appreciation for all the work & attention you put in here.
As someone who has used MS ( ;^P ) Money for about 10 years under the pretext that I owned it once I paid for it, I was flabbergasted when the DB’s at MS decided to leave us all high & dry. Could they not have at least modified the code so we could keep going to our own banks.brokers, etc. to get price & transaction updates? One would think they were going out of business as a brand.
Again, thank you for all your efforts.
CD
NYC
Harry Sit says
David – It probably depends on your specific version of Money. In Money Plus, it’s under Banking -> Account List -> (left pane) Manage online services -> click on the bank/brokerage name -> Stop using online services.
Dan says
Thank you for sharing the script. When Microsoft pulls the plug this time next year, we’ll have a means to update quotes 🙂
Rich Smolucha says
First off thanks for the pioneering scripts… FYI I’ve ported some of these (the price to OFX file ones) to VBA as a set of user-defined functions in an Excel Workbook. I had my own version of Yahoo-price-getter functions (retrieves the last quote including real-time (presuming the market is open)).
In combination these scripts (a) get the latest prices, (b) create the OFX file for stock price updates, and (c) imports the OFX file into Money Plus 2007. All of this is driven by a worksheet in the workbook that lists the securities of interest. The workbook runs all of this on activation. So to use it one (a) manages the list of ticker symbols in a worksheet (which is rpretty trivial) and (b) opens the workbook whenever the prices are to be updated (this can be added to scheduled tasks to make it totally automatic).
There are some anomalies… for one the prices though specificed with a DTASOF of toay are recorded in Money Plus 2007 with tomorrows date (that is if the DATEASOF is 20100115 (jan 15 2010) the price history records these as being for Jan 16 2010). Any clues as to why this would be would be apprciated. I am actively working to remedy this and hope to have success at some point. Also, as you noted the updates only happen “periodically” (youy say once a day but I can get the updates in more than once a day as long as I first delete all of the prices for the current date).
I’d be glad to share the code if you’re interested in vetting it and then hosting it to the community. I also have some work in progress to download statements from firms (credit card, banking, investment firms) and have these working for a small set of companies (Discover, American Express, and Fidelity Investments). I’d also be glad to share these as they become more stable. THese also are driven by tables in a worksheet so a non-programmer can use these out-of-the-box.
Thanks again and feedback appreciated.
ameridan says
I utilize a Watch Account in Money (that I’ve renamed Market Indexes) and I wondered – “can I use this script to update these as well, when Money goes offline?”
Well it turns out you can by simply including Yahoo’s symbols for the indexes in the STOCKS section of TFB’s script.
^DJI for Dow Jones Industrial Avg.
^GSPC for S&P 500 and
^IXIC for the NASDAQ Composite
ameridan says
I remember reading that someone was looking for a way to download exchange rates, and I think I’ve figured that out too. See http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/01/28/16/
I’m documenting all of my findings in my Micosoft Money Offline blog and making sure TFB gets credit for his great scripts!
Wilf says
This looks like a fantastic solution; I’m looking forward to trying it!
Thought I’d first check that Yahoo listed my mutual funds but I can’t find them. All are Royal Bank, for example RBF266(Cdn dividend), RBF462(Global energy), etc. I’ve tried the symbol, Symbol.TO, and searching on the name but no results.
What am I doing wrong???
Stubby says
TFB – I run Perl on my PC; is there an equivalent script that will run on it instead of the one mentioned in this blog that runs on Python?
Harry Sit says
Stubby – No, not in Perl. You can try this Python-to-Perl translation tool: Perthon.
HENRY ALKEN says
TFB you are a genius!
Your Python script updates the stocks in my 2005 MSN Money Merrill Lynch account.
I notice that the Funds do not get updated. I added the 2 funds
[“VTSMX”, VBMFX”] that you have in your example to my Merrill Lynch account with just 1 share of each but I noticed they were not updated. Is there a reason for this?
This script has taken a real load off my mind in view of Microsoft’s irresponsible behavior in terminating support. Little Willy should stop screwing around in Africa and come back and run the business.
Great work!
Wilf says
Follow-up to post 54: I’ve been searching for the past week and still can’t figure out how to get Yahoo to return Canadian mutual funds.
Google reports Cdn funds but their OFX download seems to be for statement data vs. financial quotes.
I don’t know enough about scripting to figure out how to rewrite this for Google.
Can someone help me figure out how to have Yahoo show CDN funds or how to get price updates into Money from Google?
Thanks!
ameridan says
Wilf,
I just added the answer (with instructions and links) to your question on my blog http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/02/14/adapting-quotes-py-for-worldwide-stocks-funds/ using Yahoo!
You won’t have to change any of the scripts 🙂 ENJOT!
ameridan says
Wilf,
I see what you mean now; some mutual funds like rbf266 don’t seem to be tracked at Yahoo! and Google doesn’t seem to provide a CSV / OFX means of obtaining quotes.
Wilf says
Thanks AmeriDan!
It looks like Yahoo stopped tracking most of the Royal Bank funds – strange: the Royal is Canada’s largest bank.
Google’s Excel download has the quotes but I have no clue how to move that to an OFX.
I’m hoping someone can help find a way to make this work with Google or another service.
Thanks,
Wilf.
Jim says
Vanguard fund prices are not updating in MS Money 2004. The OFX file does contain the updated prices. Any ideas?
Dan says
The first time you import the OFX file, you have to match the investments (with Yahoo! symbols) up with the equivalent investment already in Money (with MSN symbols). If you blow by that step, then they are considered to be independent investments with a quantity of zero. That is why the instructions state that you need to create a Dummy Account (that you’ll never look at).
Having said all that, I could be way off base 🙂 but my intentions are to hopefully trigger your recollection of how you handled the first OFX download.
Jim says
Thanks Dan. Unfortunately, I did it by the book. Followed the instructions to a T. Still no go.
Dan says
In that case, try deleting the Dummy Account and reimport the OFX (it will prompt you to create another Dummy account). Also a few more details… do you still do the online updates? do you use the other OFX script to get data from Vanguard?
jim says
I have used Bank of America, Vanguard, and FIA Card Services manual download OFX files. I have used Money 2004 online update. I have tried adding “1” unit to your script.
I have tried a new file using your script first and allowing Money to create a new account. Then downloading a single Vanguard account with six investments to track. This new file is using Yahoo symbols and descriptions.
If it is the script, it is not forcing Money to use the updated price. If it is Money, then it will only accept MSN updates or manual updates.
Jim says
Just downloaded several current transactions from Vanguard. Friday’s updated prices DID NOT update in “my” Money 2004.
ameridan says
Jim,
By chance, the mutual funds that aren’t updating – are they closed end funds?
I’ve stumbled on some information that only open ended funds should be requested in the [funds] section of quotes.py as closed end funds are really like stocks.
By the way, check out the Java quotes app in my Blog (click on my name) and see if that works any differently. I’m trying to learn all I can on these OFX importing methods…
Dan
Jim says
Dan,
The funds are all open. This is turning into a pretty good puzzle. I’m testing your script on Money’s latest version, Plus. The first pass updated perfectly. I will test again today and through out the week. Money 2004, same script, no go.
My installation of Money 2004 is from original disk with no known updates from MS servers. Running on Windows XP sp3. Only clues are brokerage account OFX files do not update current prices even tho they are included in the OFX files. Online update does work.
ameridan says
Well, TFB has proven functionality with Money 2006 and I have with Money Plus (it’s probably safe to assume Money 2007 works fine as well), so perhaps Money 2004 just isn’t compatible with the scripts. Everyone needs to realize that the OFX Python Quote scripts are taking real quote data and wrapping that data with created OFX parameters so that Money recognises it as an OFX file to import. It could just be one of those parameters throwing the older Money off?…
“OFXHEADER:100”,
“DATA:OFXSGML”,
“VERSION:102”,
“SECURITY:NONE”,
“ENCODING:USASCII”,
“CHARSET:1252”,
Jim says
I’m not a programmer so who knows what is in Money 2004 preventing the updates. It does work on Money Plus, so this is really just a puzzle for me. Money 2004 was my favorite version and it is independent of MS activation. What will happen to Money Plus? MS in control not me. With 2004 I own the software.
Bobby, over at PocketSense, has written some scripts I going to try. I think he likes the same puzzle I do. Plus his IQ is 10x higher than mine.
Dan, you’ve written excellent pioneering scripts. Hopefully, as more Money users are deactivated scripts will be written building on yours. Quicken desktop will be EOL within a couple of years. This is going to be a fascinating area for scripts.
ameridan says
Just to set the record straight, I haven’t written any scripts and I am not TFB 🙂
I just appreciate what he has started and am trying to help him (her) out. I started my Blog ( http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/ ) after trying out TFB’s Quote script with the intent of posting anything that might help other Money users after their program goes OFFLINE.
And I agree with your remark about Bobby – he has really mastered Python!
James says
Nice scripts, I will have to rewrite into either VBScript, PowerShell, or JScript in order to get the functionality working on my system. Thanks for the insight.
HENRY ALKEN says
TFB,
I do not see the connection between the Python scripts and MSN Money.
How does Python get Money to read the .OFX file and update the portfolio prices?
Dan says
Henry,
The scripts grab the quotes from Yahoo! Finance (not MSN Money) site and “create” an OFX file that you link to a dummy account in Money. Once any OFX file is submitted to Money, it is automatically imported, and any other accounts that have those same investments are therefore updated as well.
HENRY ALKEN says
Dan,
Thank you for your response.
How is an OFX file ‘submitted’ to Money?
Where is the OFX file placed – in what directory?
How does Money know which OFX file to read?
When I ran the Python script, my MSN Money 2005 updated all the stocks in the portfolio. I did not have a Dummy account.
Dan says
I was under the impression that since the quantities are set to zero (0), and that if you linked to a real account, the price would be correct but you would mess up your quantity. TFB has a very clear set of instructions – kinda sounds like you didn’t follow them ???
The files end up in a temp folder – as soon as your PC sees the OFX file, the Money import handler program takes care of it.
Dan says
Henry,
Sorry if I came across kind of strong. Now that I reviewed the posting again, I guess there really weren’t a clear set of instructions – just a sentence as to what TFB did. If linking the quotes up to a real account doesn’t mess up your investment quantities, that would be good to know.
Dan says
Henry,
In answer to your other question, the following code is what submits the OFX file to your PC.
os.startfile(fileName)
When you install Money, the OFX file extension is registered with the Money Import Handler program which keeps track of the OFX files submitted, imports them into Money, and then deletes them from the temp folder afterwards.
Michael says
I am a 12 year heavy user of MS Money – currently use Money 2007. I agree with all the sentiments re Money being very powerful and seems superior to Quicken and the few emerging newbies.
However I have an additional problem that I am unclear about a solution.
I have a very large MNY file with multiple Investment ,credit card and Bank accounts – all are denominated in AUSTRALIAN Dollars. Everything works fine and all stock prices are automatically updated. It is unclear how the Python scripts handle a mixture of Australian,Canadian and US stock prices. In MS Money the stocks ticker symbols are, for example BHP (for Australian stock) CD:PLS (canada TSE) and US:IBM (for NYSE stocks) . These same stocks in Yahoo are designated as BHP.AX PLS.TO and IBM.
Can the Python script handle the accessing the prices from Yahoo with one set of Stock symbols and then assigning the prices to the correct stocks in Money?
Alternatively do you have to somehow force Money at accept new stock symbols that are identical to the Yahoo ones?
This problem does not arise if all the stocks are US Based – as neither Money or Yahoo have exchange identifiers attached to the stocks. The problem does arise if the US based account has foreign stocks ,including Canada.
Appreciate some help
Dan says
The symbols are all relative to MSN, so when gathering the quotes from Yahoo!, they’ll need to be changed. When matching the investments up after the first download using quotes.py, I think Money will store the new symbol internally, even if you don’t see it changed in the Portfolio screen.
You can download quotes for foreign stocks using the OFX scripts, but I think the quotes will always be in US dollars.
Even though the exchange rate can also be downloaded with the same script, it won’t work in the same manner as the MSN update.
Hal says
First, I want to thank you much for your quote download script for Money.
It works great and I hope will continue to do well.
However, I would like to suggest an addition to the script that stops it to report a symbol that no longer exists (de-listing, etc). This recently happened to me when ALD merged. The script will close before I could see any error message to find out why. I then realized the delisting and removed symbol.. thus back to working AOK.
Tracy says
I missed the step about creating a dummy account and selected a real account. Now I need to undo that and have the import use a dummy account. I turned off online banking for all accounts but I can’t get Money to ask me which account to use for the import. I’m using Money Plus. Can someone please help?
nulle says
anyone knows I can get my hands on a copy of MSM 2006 Deluxe or higher?
I am running MSM 2004 STD OEM version on Win2K machine. I have a copy of MSM 2006 Std standing by…however the MSM 2006 Std version sucks in terms of functionality. the MSM 2006 Deluxe is the replacement for it.
I am also trying to find a way to import quotes via the QIF (still researching) just recently lost the ability to update stock prices from online.
Henry Alken says
TFB
Does your Python program also update the dividends received into one’s brokerage account?
I currently have a Merrill Lynch account and each dividend received from a stock is automatically entered into the account by Money as well as the stock price.
Harry Sit says
Henry – There are two scripts. The script in this post only downloads prices. The other script downloads account activities, including dividends. You will have to find out the settings for Merrill Lynch. Please read the other post.
Harry Sit says
nulle – eBay.com
HENRY ALKEN says
TFB
I am having no luck getting a response from Merrill Lynch using ofx.py.
I am getting HTTP Error 400.
Any help finding the “sites” data for Merrill Lynch would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Harry Sit says
Henry – What settings did you use? According to a post by Dan, it’s
“caps”: [ “SIGNON”, “INVSTMT” ],
“fiorg”: “www.mldirect.ml.com”,
“fid”: “5550″,
“url”: “https://taxcert.mlol.ml.com/eftxweb/access.ofx”,
HENRY ALKEN says
TFB
Thank you. I am now getting a Money window that pops up with a Heading of Import Summary and a content of Import Complete after I run ofx-ba-tfb-auto.py.txt using import-ofx.bat.txt. Merrill Lynch is accepting the request for updates without complaining but is not sending the new prices.
In your “quotes.py” you created a class OfxWriter to list the stock names.
Is that list of stocks to be updated now created by Money and is no longer necessary?
Harry Sit says
Henry – If you are able to run the account update script and Merrill Lynch is your only investment account, you probably don’t need the quote script. The prices only update once a day. Run it again in a few days and see if the prices change. If for some reason Merrill Lynch does not include prices in its download, you will need the quote script but you will have to manually edit the list of stocks and funds in that script. It doesn’t know about your accounts or holdings.
HENRY ALKEN says
TFB
I have attempted to obtain the log files which describe the traffic between Money and Merrill Lynch but have not been successful:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/911941/en-us
I have checked the Registry and it has been correctly changed to permit log file generation.
The two log files should be:
merrillrs.txt for the request to Merrill
merrillrq.txt for the response from Merrill
Maybe you will have better luck.
whm says
MS Money Plus Deluxe (ver 17) alerts you to dividend payouts for your holdings without downloading the information from your broker. Would you consider adding this feature to your quote script? If not, is there a web site that provides and tracks dividend payout dates & amounts for investments. Thank you.
HENRY ALKEN says
I thought I would check in to see how everyone is doing with the MSN Money replacement business.
I got a free copy of MSN Money Plus and started using TFB’s price updating scripts. But then I found that my broker, Merrill Lynch, had an OFX download for MSN Money users. I started using that & it worked extremely well, downloading prices, dividends, stock splits, etc.
But this week Merrill Lynch notified me that Microsoft is no longer supplying them with data & so they have disabled the MSN Money OFX file download from their website. From now on they will supply only QIF files for Quicken.
So I thought I would switch to Quicken. However, when I read the user reviews on 2010 Quicken they were extremely hostile to the software and to the Intuit company. In fact I have never read such bad reviews.
So now I am sticking with MSN Money Plus and back to using TFB’s Life Saver script for updating prices from Yahoo.
One reader, #47, asked how to disable the import – file connection. This is not so easy. Here is one Microsoft recommended procedure:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/910214
As you can see even the Microsofties have trouble doing it.
For those who wish to study OFX, there is a PDF spec that can be downloaded:
http://www.ofx.net/
So,in summary, I am using TFB’s great script and a dummy account for updating prices. I manually enter the broker’s cash total which includes all dividends. Individual dividends are not entered. I enter, by hand, stock splits and stock purchases & sales.
How is everyone else doing?
John says
Hello! I am getting this error:
Retrieving quote for XOM
Retrieving quote for CTDB.OB
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\J\Desktop\Money Files\quotes.py”, line 245, in
sec.getQuote()
File “C:\Users\J\Desktop\Money Files\quotes.py”, line 86, in getQuote
timeStruct = time.strptime(quote[2] + ” ” + quote[3], “%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p”)
File “C:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py”, line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File “C:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py”, line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data ‘N/A N/A’ does not match format ‘%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p’
I tried it with Python 2.6.2 and 2.7. Any ideas?
Harry Sit says
John – CTDB.OB isn’t a valid ticker in Yahoo. It says the symbol changed to CTDBQ.OB.
John says
TFB,
Thanks! If I knew Python well enough, I would throw in an Onerror messagebox “The following stocks/fund name is not recognized and cannot be retrieved. Ending the script. Press OK to acknowledge.” It seems alot of the questions you deal with above are from stock name issues and not actual script issues, so I am not the only one who had a problem there, but you shouldn’t have to research my stock names for me. Thanks for doing my homework for me and for the help! 😉
Waqar says
Is it possible to amend the script to pick the prices from a different website. I am in the UK and have a portfolio up at Moneyextra which offers a facility to download prices etc as a csv file. Can this be modded to create an ofx file ?
Alternatively there is the MS Money excel addin which pulls prices into excel from MSN Moneycentral, could that be modded to create a ofx file ?
Gerry says
Newbie here…REALLY appreciate all the experts on here helping. I’m stuck, though. I am using MS Money Plus and am not having success with the script. I think I followed all the steps…when on double click on my “python quotes.py” script, a dialogue box BRIEFLY appears (too quick for me to read anything in it) and then closes. Nothing more. No “further prompts” or anything and nothing that appears to have been created within Money or external to it. What am I doing wrong? I downloaded Python, the TFB script, created “Dummy Investment” acct and populated it w/ the stocks/funds used in the script. What am I missing??
Thanks in advance!
Rick Sparks says
I haven’t tried it yet because my Money Deluxe 2006 still updates share prices each day…. but I’m preparing for after Jan 2011 (I think that’s the date (?))
Why wouldn’t this work as an alternative:
1) Set up accounts in Google Finance Portfolios
2) Download as OFX (upper right of Portfolio)
3) Import into Money
Wouldn’t that be equally effective??
Harry Sit says
Rick Sparks – People tried it back in January and it didn’t work. Open the downloaded OFX file in a text editor and see if there are prices in it. There weren’t back then. Maybe things changed now.
Rick Sparks says
TFB – Thanks!
Hmmmm…. you’re right… but that doesn’t seem right.
I’ll investigate further and if I find anything I’ll post it.
Rick Sparks says
TFB — You’re right … it doesn’t seem like a true OFX files.
…. it just has the transactions… not the current prices.
I appreciate everything you’re doing….. I’m just hoping for something simpler by the time we all need it.
Gunther Schwarz says
TBF,
just ran into this discussion and thanks, you seem to have the answers I am looking for.
Right now I want to get the “quotes script” set up.
I took your samle and added all my stock symbols to it.
Is the name of this script quotes. ofx. ?
Mine is not working, Also the file that it creates, where do I find it so I can check for mistakes?
I hope you have some patience with me, I am not at all familiar with scripts etc.
Waqar Aziz says
Google accepting suggestions
Already prices in the ofx file
RonS says
Hi TFB, After looking for a replacement for Money I was dispointed in what I found. I have been a MS Money user since it was first released so decided that since the only online feature I used was Quote downloads for my portfolio I would develope a routine to get the quotes into money using my Excel experience. Doing my research on how to convert .XLS files into .QFX i ran across your site, the internet is great, and decided to try your scripts. I am useing 2008 Money Deluxe Plus.
I followed all your instructions and they worked great except that some mutial funds and ETF’s would not update in Money, but the data in the QFX file was correct. The script was geting the correct info but Money wasn’t accepting the data. After some investigation I uncovered the issues, which turned out to be my problem with Money setup issues.
1) Some of my mutial funds were set up as “Investment Type” “Other”amd some of my ETF’s were setup as “Mutual Fund”.
To get there and check yours… In portfolio select a stock/fund, Right click, select “Investment Details” observe “Investment Type” box. Unfortunately you can’t change it.
After playing arround with this and doing some reserch on MS web site I ran across this artical on how to change an investment type.
http://money.mvps.org/faq/article/305.aspx
I converted 6 investment types using these instructions some had over 30 transactions, (buy, sell, dividends, LTCG, STCG, Reinvest div).
In step 2, When I added the large investment to the “OLD Investment” I used the “Add Shares” Feature.
If you name your new Investment to fall just under your old investment in the investment drop down list, it becomes very easy and quick to make the changes. It becomes all “Mouse Clicks”. In your transfer account the only change will me the name of the transfer source.
Another think I discovered, You don’t need to make any entries in the “Dummy Investment” account. My portfolio has 36 entries in 4 accounts with some duplicates. Every thing updates with the script with no entries in my Dummy Investment account.
Bigguy says
TFB – After reading all of the comments, I am still not clear as to how to perform this process. I found that the 2.6.2 downloads were not available at either Active Python or Python websites. Which version should I use? Also, where do I download quotes.py.txt?
Sorry, but I guess I’m not very savy about this.
Thanks for your help.
Harry Sit says
@Bigguy – The most recent version of Active Python or Python will do, as long as it includes SSL. The quote script is here. I renamed it to quotes.py.
whm says
I’ve tried adding ^DJI to the stock list as suggested by Ameridan but the script gives the following error:
Traceback (most recent call last):
line 232, in
sec.getQuote()
line 74, in getQuote
self.price = quote[1]
IndexError: list index out of range
Here is the script:
stocks = [“AMZN”,
“GOOG”,
“PG”,
“YHOO”,
“^DJI”]
What have I done wrong? Thank you.
ameridan says
Within the last 2 or 3 weeks, Yahoo stopped providing quote data for the Dow Jones symbol. Not sure if and when Yahoo will resolve this issue.
Chris says
Thanks so much for creating such an elegant solution to a very frustrating problem. The installation and use of Python was much easier than I was fearing. Kudos to the folks that made this possible!
Dan says
For those needing a newer version of Money, you can get a copy of Money Plus Deluxe free downloaded from Microsoft. This “Sunset” version is fuly functional and does not require registration.
Just search for “Money Plus Sunset Deluxe”
Dave says
ameridan
as you say, “^DJI” is no longer updated on Yahoo, but you can use “INDU” (at least, until they stop that too)
regards
Dave
Lou says
I am wondering if this script will work with options
David says
I’ve been downloading prices recently by changing the date of the operating system to 2007, and then downloading before it updates automatically when I go back online. (For those who haven’t heard this before, here are the steps: 1) turn off your internet connection; 2) change the OS date to 2007 by double-clicking on the date on the status bar at the bottom of the screen; 3) open Money and make sure the date reflects the date you set; 4) turn on your internet connection; 5) quickly run your “Internet Updates” as you used to do.
Unfortunately, I do not know if this will work after January 1, 2011. Does anyone know if Money will shut off the ability to go online at all? I downloaded the MS Money Sunset version, and it looks like it doesn’t have any online capabilities at all, even when I change the operating system date back to 2007.
John Hennessey says
I was just wondering, for those of us in the UK, would it be possible to take Fund quotes from the Yahoo.co.uk server rather than .com (which has now UK Mutual Funds)?
Thanks so much!
Steve says
Re: #51 Rich Smolucha on January 13, 2010
Rich,
It looks like nobody has replied to your post, but I’d be interested in the VBA route.
I have a similar Excel workbook, which I’ve set up to automatically download prices from London stock exchange. I’d much prefer to be able to import these closing prices into Money.
Any chance of posting up the file somewhere, or even the macro to reformat the data to OFX file?
Thanks for any help.
Bill M. says
Thanks for this script…worked perfectly in MS Money Plus, sunset version. Exactly what I needed, and written in my favorite language to boot. : ) I’ve fought an fought with Quicken and I think I’m just giving up and doing the old school money thing manually. Maybe I can try to automate some of my data importing using Python and OFX files if I get bored. : )
Grady J. says
TFB, thank you so much for making this available. I have been looking at AceMoney and other alternatives since I found out about the shutdown, but none of them were as nice as Money.
I installed Python 2.7. I added your quotes.py script to a /scripts subdirectory in the Money program directory, and created a shortcut on my desktop. I created a Dummy Investments account with no stocks. I substituted my stocks in the script. I don’t have any mutual funds, so I modified funds to: funds = [ ]. The prices in Money were updated as desired. I found the quotes.ofx file in the same subdirectory with quotes.py.
I have been using Money 2005(V14), which is still updating as of Dec 2010, but I guess that will end next month. I installed the Money Plus sunset version and the python script on a different computer running Win7 for testing. The sunset version updated my 2005 money file, but I noticed no real difference in the new sunset version (V17).
I was not aware that Python was such a powerful high level language, with GUI interface capability. I have been wanting to learn a programming language with that capability for tasks such as this. I will have to look into Python.
Thanks again,
Grady
ameridan says
Bill & Grady,
Seeing as to how you’d like to enhance your Python scripts, you might want to also check out PocketSense and some of the other options I cover in the Microsoft Money OFFLINE Blog @ http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/
PocketSense started out as enhanced versions of the Python scripts covered here.
Dan (ameridan)
Harry Sit says
Yes, Robert, creator of PocketSense, and Dan are much better with Python than I am. They took the scripts published here to the next level. I now use PocketSense myself.
G Coutts says
Thanks for this. I’ve tried the Quicken import and it proved to be a joke, I currently have multiple portfolios of over a hundred Canadian, American and UK traded shares in USD and CAD with hundreds of foreign exchange transfers between various bank accounts and cash accounts and thousands of same currency transactions going back to 1993. All Quicken did was create hundreds of duplicate transactions and even fails to recognize the Money tickers and convert these to Quicken tickers. A total waste of money and time.
Your process with some modification at least allows the continued use of Money.
I’ve created to Python scripts, one for CAD securities and one for USD securities. Manually I then need to convert the ofx file these generate to convert the Yahoo tickers to Money tickers as my Canadian Dollar based files identifies US tickers with “US:” and Canadian tickers as just the TSX ticker. This is simple enough use find/replace in Word. I can then import the two scripts into two different Watch lists by using two different fictitious brokerage numbers.
What would be nice would be some advice as to whether it is possible to automate the US Yahoo to CAD based Money ticker conversion within the Python script so that the resultant ofx file can be opened automatically by Money without the manual Word intervention.
Steve says
I’ve managed to modify the script to work for London Stock Exchange quotes, with default currency GBP, so you should be able to do the same for CAD.
Give it a try. Open the quotes.py file with PyrhonWin, and edit the line…
currency = “USD”
to
currency = “CAD”
…and save it as a separate file.
You may find it best to amend your Canadian stock tickers in Money and also in the sites.dat file, so that they’re the same as Yahoo tickers. ie with the .TO suffix
Manu says
This website is great! I have been dreading switching to another money management program since I have used MS Money since 1998. I use Money almost every day. I also have no idea why MS stopped providing online account updates or will stop providing online quotes, but I have been trying out some alternatives. I checked out Quicken (not sure which version) and I feel that it’s very different from Money. Money seems much more easier to use, but maybe it’s because I have used it for 12+ years. I also tried Mint,com which is a great aggregator, but I haven’t figured out how to enter all of my bills to better forecast my checking account balance.
I am very interested in checking out the work-around on updating quotes for my portfolio. I have never heard of Python, but will try to create the script to update quotes this weekend.
Thanks for your help!
Moe says
Anyone tried using iBank 4? I now use a Mac and have read some good reviews.
Mike R says
Great script. Not a programmer, but I did get it working for MS Money 2008. Did like Tom’s (number 30) entertainment. I found this useful because if I entered a bogus ticker symbol, the program would hault there. Was just wondering if there is a way to show which ticker symbol failed (ticker symbols have been known to change), like a pause in the program if it doesn’t exist and also display the monetary value of the ticker symbol as it says “Retriving quote for AMZN – $184.68”?
Cameron says
Well, this tool is amazing. I am loving it.
It works perfectly for stock quotes.
I am now trying to get my Canadian mutual funds in the script now. I have the right symbols, as verified on Yahoo. They are:
F0CAN05MZD.TO
F0CAN05NG1.TO
AGFCANADIANG.TO
The script isn’t successful in creating the OFX file. It seems there is a problem with the date stamp on the quote from the traceback file that quickly pops up.
I have tried putting the symbol is as either a stock or mutual fund to no success.
I am not a python expert, although have learned a lot already.
Anyone have any tips out there? A solution would be fabulous.
Hung Le says
Cameron: an alternative is to use Google’s portfolio get the quote price. I see that F0CAN05MZD.TO is available as MUTF_CA:AIM1581.
Then use a test version of hleOfxQuotes.jar to fetch your GooglePortfolio’s data and convert them into *.ofx.
Best,
Grace DiVecchio says
I need help. I am 77 years old, running Windows 7 and have used MS Money (now on 7) since it first came out. All of my checks are written thru it and I have a major portfolio which — obviously — stopped updating quotes yesterday. I don’t understand what you mean by “writing scripts”. I’m not a programmer, but pretty bright. When my new computer was installed recently (1T w/quad core processor & 2 monitors), Quicken was pre-installed. I’ve never opened it. Should I do so now? OR – Can you tell me how to get my updates so I can continue using MSN, with which I have a comfort level ?
Any and all advice will be welcomed and most appreciated.
Grace DiVecchio says
PS – I said MSN, but meant Microsoft Money.
Jim Clayton says
I’m late to the party but have been using MSN Portfolio Manager for over 10 years and have lots of data I hate to lose. Currently have been using MSN MOney Plus Deluxe. I care about nothing other than Portfolio Manager.
I’m not knowledgeable about Python, etc. and not much more than moderately computer literate. I would gladly pay for the proper software, script and instructions to make this work. I manage about 25 portfolios for family, etc. and am now at a standstill. Would you be interested in providing info for a price?
Thanks,
Jim
ameridan says
Jim,
I’m betting you already hava Java on your PC, so let me point you to a Java app that is VERY easy to install on your PC (download and run) and type (or import a list) in all of the stocks and funds you want to import the quotes into Money.
See http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/java-app-not-python-to-update-quotes-into-money/
Gerry says
Ameridan — Thank you so much for pointing out the link to the Java solution. For those of us that have been unsuccessful with Python (I tried and tried), the Java solution is really a godsend. All I’ve wanted was to be able to easily update my investment portfolio (I never used the downloaded bank statements even when that was available on Money) and I kept striking out. Once you pointed out the Java option, I had it working (and updating) in minutes. Many, many thanks to you and Hung Le!!
Jim Clayton says
Ameridan,
Thank you for responding. And is there a tip for importing a list rather than typing in a long list of symbols?
I apologize in advance for probably contacting you again. Just trying to get this thing to work – I’m a decent investor, but not so good at computer language.
Jim
RonS says
TFB Great site. I had the same issue as Post # 15 where I needed a daily mm Fund quote for my Excel analysis sheets which import Money data using “Ultrasoft Money Link”. After some research and updating my MMF price manually I came up with the following solution which works great.
Because Yahoo doesn’t provide a quote for MM funds and the prise is always $1.00 and I needed a daily quote for my Excel analysis sheets, I made the following changes to the script.
To add Money Market Quotes each time I run the scripe, I inserted a fixed quote for my MM fund “VMMXX” as follows.
Find the following Section (line 138:
for mf in self.mfList:
posmf.append(self._pos(“mf”, mf.ticker, mf.price, mf.quoteTime))
And Modify as follows:
—————————————-
for mf in self.mfList:
posmf.append(self._pos(“mf”, mf.ticker, mf.price, mf.quoteTime))
posmf.append(self._pos(“mf”, “VMMXX”, “1.00”, mf.quoteTime))
—————————————–
Just copy/past the “posmf…” line and detent the entry back even with the for loop and replace “mf.ticker” with your MM Fund symbol “VMMXX” in my case and mf.price with “1.00”. If you have more than one MM Fund you can add multiple lines.
Then Find the following section (line 194):
——————————————
for mf in self.mfList:
mfinfo.append(self._info(“mf”, mf.ticker, mf.name, mf.price))
——————————————
And Modify as follows:
—————————————
for mf in self.mfList:
mfinfo.append(self._info(“mf”, mf.ticker, mf.name, mf.price))
mfinfo.append(self._info(“mf”,”VMMXX” , “Vanguard Money Ma”, “1.00”))
—————————————-
Just copy/past the “mfinfo…..” line and detent the entry back even with the for loop.
Replace “mf.ticker” with your MM Fund symbol “VMMXX” in my case, “mf.name” with your fund name “Vanguard Money Ma” in my case “I truncated the name to 17 chars because all the other names in the .ofx file were truncated” and mf.price with “1.00”. If you have more than one MM Fund you can add multiple lines.
These mods will add the MM fund quote to the .ofx at a fixed price of $1.00 each time you run the script.
Ron
I have been using the script with this modification for some time now with no issues.
Jim Clayton says
I have downloaded Hung Le’s latest hleOfxquotes (with the import to MNMoney button.
Before I run this the first time, a question or two for anyone who may help:
I’m running about 25 separate accounts in my Money Plus Sunset edition Portfolio Manager. Some stocks, funds, and ETFs are unique to a particular account while many equities are common to several or all accounts. If I list each symbol only once, will this update that particular holding across multiple accounts?
Also, I know how to set up a dummy acount with fake holdings in Money, but I’m not sure how to restrict this update to just the dummy account when I activate the “Import to MNMoney” button. Any help is appreciated.
Jim
Harry Sit says
@RonS – Since Money Market funds maintain $1.00 NAV all the time, why not take the Money Market fund symbols off the list? The price won’t change. You set it to $1.00 once and it will stay at $1.00.
Grace DiVecchio says
Can some one please help. I have no idea how to download the Java app mentioned in #132. When I click the link, the Blog page comes up.
All I want to do is be able to update my investment prices in MSMoney.
Jim Clayton says
Grace,
From the Java apps blog site, click on the “here” below and you can download it.
The first comment I received on my new Blog site is from HLE and he offers a Java app (hleOfxQuotes) he wrote to obtain quotes from Yahoo! and output them into an OFX file for import into Money. If you already have Java installed, download the app “here”, save it on your PC, and just click on it. HLE’s install notes are at the bottom of this post.
Jim
Gerry says
@Jim Clayton: Yes, just list all the symbols you need to update prices for…they will update in all your accounts (and in multiple accts if you have the same asset in more than one acct). I have multiple active and rollover IRAs, taxable accts, etc. One list in the Java app and they’re all updated at once.
When you hit the “import into MSMoney” button, it will ask which acct you want to associate it to. That’s when you choose the Dummy Acct.
whm says
Is there a method to get MS Money to compute and show the daily change value and total change in the Portfolio Manager View for the investments whose prices were imported via the scripts?
Thank you.
ameridan says
i don’t believe that will ever be possible.
Grace DiVecchio says
Thanks to Jim and Gerry for your help downloading. My portfolios include over 150 investments. Do I have to manually list all of them? Are they separated by commas? Pressing the Enter Key does NOT bring me to the next line. Also, how do I list Preferred Stocks? E-Trade shows (as an example) PSA.PR.A; MSMoney shows PSA-A. Tried both and neither took.
Last question: Please confirm that when I get all my Stock Symbols entered and import them into MSMoney, I am supposed to import to the dummy account, but the prices WILL update in my various portfolios where they are actually held — right?
Cannot thank you enough.
Mike Marando says
Its 2/5/11. I opened Money this morning and all my quotes had been updated to yesterday’s close. I did nothing but open the program. The update quotes command would not work. I don’t understand what is going on. It must have updated itself while the program was closed. Anyone experience this?.
Hal says
You’ve got to be kidding………………
Gerry says
@Grace: Yes, you’ll have to manually list all your investments the first time. The Java application will save them for future updates. Click the “Update Prices” button and it will populate the info at the bottom of the app. Then click “Import to MSMoney” (have your Money program open at the same time) and have it import to the Dummy Acct. YES, it will definitely update ALL the investments that you listed in the Java app even if they aren’t in your Dummy Acct (my Dummy acct has 3 investments in it, but I update 26+ investments in 8 different accounts.
Gerry says
@Grace: Oh yeah, just separate the investment symbols by a comman; you don’t need to hit Return.
Grace DiVecchio says
OK – Got it. Thanks for the super help.
Any advice on how to enter the preferreds?
What about Bonds? If I put in the Cusip Number, will it track?
Gerry says
@Grace: Sorry, no. If it doesn’t have a ticker symbol, I can’t help. All mine are stocks and mutual funds.
Jim Clayton says
Not directly related to the thread, but certainly related to the Money problem:
Does anyone have knowledge of, or experience with, Acemoney?
Grace DiVecchio says
OK – After all the work, I’m still not satisfied because although the stock prices update in MSMoney — account totals, profit & loss per investment, net worth, etc do NOT. So since I feel forced to adopt a new finance program, can anyone tell me which is closest to Money? I’m 77 and the learning curve seems tougher than it used to. I’ve checked what’s out there and can’t decide among the top 5 or 6. Please help.
Jim Clayton says
Grace,
I too am not ready to quit. If you have 5 or 6 options, I would appreciate knowing about them. I can tell you I’ve investigated Quicken (the worst), Portfolio Manager (out of Australia), Investment Account Manager (much more than I need – it’s spendy and appears to be for professionals). I’m currently looking into AceMoney and it has some promise. Too early to tell for sure.
Like Grace, I would appreciate any information anyone is willing to volunteer.
Feel free to respond directly to jim at jimclayton dot us.
Thanks
Jim
Henry Alken says
Grace and Jim,
Which broker do you each use?
I use Merrill Lynch and they give me an OFX download anytime I ask for it. The download updates all prices, percentages, etc as of the night before. There has been no interruption of any kind during the January 31 period. It only takes 4 clicks to download all the prices from Merrill into MSN Money Plus.
I am a programmer starting with Assembly Language on an IBM 7090 in Greenland defending the good old USA. The last thing I need is to have to learn yet another programming language, be it Python, Moccasin, Rattler, Boa or whatever.
I suggest you find a broker who supplies an OFX file for downloading your data into MSN Money Plus.
When Little Willy Gates announced he was walking away from his MSN Money responsibilities, I looked at other Money-type programs and couldn’t find anything close to MSN Money in the areas of performance and ease of use.. Quicken is the pits.
Bye the way, I am 78 years old and I shall do my best to look out for you young-uns.
Henry
Grace DiVecchio says
My accounts are all at E-Trade and – voila — I just contacted my wonderful account rep, Jeff Rosenthal, who got their IT guy on the line who walked me through two clicks (count them two) to download all the data direct from E-Trade to my MSMoney Account. All totals and extensions and net worth info also got in. Unfortunately, he said that since Microsoft was no longer supporting the program, they would probably delete the link as well, but did not know how long it would take. Maybe a year he said. They also have a link to upload all the data direct into an Excell spreadsheet. So I’m good for now, but will still have to move to another program in the future and still will appreciate comments from users who switched. BTW – E-Trade also had a link to Quicken, which is in my computer, but never activated. I might just use it for the Portfolio and keep doing everything else in MSM. And you guys are super. Thanks for the help.
ameridan says
Grace,
You may very well find that the Quicken link will download into Money as well if it produces a QFX file. Read more about that here: http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/will-qfx-files-dominate-over-ofx/
Henry Alken says
Ameridan – You are a genius!
I tested your suggestion that a QFX file downloads the same as a OFX file.
I downloaded my data from Merrill Lynch using the MSN Money Plus OFX file and saved all the information.
Then, I downloaded my data from Merrill Lynch using the Quicken method and producing a QFX file.
I renamed the downloaded Quicken file “QuickenWin_012011_022011.qfx” to “QuickenWin_012011_022011.ofx”.
I imported this file into MSN Money Plus and the Merrill Lynch account was updated exactly as before. There was no difference.
This information you have passed to us gives us much more security since none of the brokers will every stop producing a Quicken file. Many thanks.
Henry
Leo says
The following has been copied from post #2 as it now applies to me. All of a sudden, the work-around for updating quotes does not work. It last worked on Friday, Feb 11, 2011, but not today Saturday. It’s been working fine for over a year.
“I appreciate very much the work you put into making Money work for us poor souls left in the dink by Microsoft. I followed your instructions for downloading stock quotes and am getting the QUOTES.OFX . However my Money Plus refuses to process it: “the file you attempted to import appears to be invalid or contains corrupt data. Please download the file again. If this problem continues, contact your financial institution.” I have created a “DUMMY INVESTMENT” account which contains the stocks in the stocks and funds lists used in quotes.py. ” I might add that even the original script gives the same error.
I don’t think I did anything to my quotes.py file other than to try to use it on another day. I even tried using a backup version of the quotes.py and it, too, gives the same error message.
Any ideas? Could Python itself be corrupted?
Thanks again.
ameridan says
Leo,
I’m quite sure the change is on Yahoo’s end. As you’ll note in comments on my Blog
http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/java-app-to-update-quotes/#comment-519
this is also occurring using Hung Le’s Java app – it has nothing to do with Pyhton, but if Yahoo doesn’t fix this, I’m sure there will be changes made to all ot the scripts to FIX things again!
Leo says
Ameridan,
Wow, that was a fast reply. I’ll check your suggestion and just wait things out. I’m sure the s*** will hit the fan shortly.
Luis says
well I was trying to fix my Ms-Money today for the first time and I couldnt make it work… after all I think I was just unlucky to try it right after yahoo disabled this feature. Do you think this is a temporary problem at yahoo, or something that will last ?
Perry says
I had the same experience as Leo – the app was working beautifully for quite some time, and all of a sudden delivered the same message (“the file you attempted to import appears to be invalid or contains corrupt data. Please download the file again. If this problem continues, contact your financial institution.”). Please keep us updated on a suggested fix! You guys are life-savers!
Hung Le says
For work-around, you can edit the generated *.ofx file yourself. Look for lines with just the tag
<SECNAME>
that indicates there is no value for SECNAME. To fix, add a value, use the ticker symbol will probably work
<SECNAME>AAPL
Notes: I have NOT tried this myself. Please have a good backup so that you can get back to known state if something went wrong.
Best,
Hung Le —
Hal says
Hung Le is completely correct.. the ticker NAME (not symbol) has been left empty by Yahoo..Not all the names have been left out but if any are blank, MONEY does not like it..
There is definitely an issue back at YAHOO and most likely it will be corrected when staff gets back to work on Monday… (WE HOPE!!!)
Thanks, Hung Le for heads up…..
Leo says
Or, you could use this download from Hung Le. Check message 158 for details.
Downloaded this build – http://hle-ofx-quotes.googlecode.com/files/hleOfxQuotes-Build_20110213_001.jar
Works fine for the most recent Yahoo missing sec name problem. I no longer have the “the file you attempted to import appears to be invalid or contains corrupt data…” issue.
Thanks.
Leo
Harry Sit says
I uploaded a new version of quotes.py to fix this error from Yahoo. It’s still at the same location:
http://thefinancebuff.com/files/ofx/quotes.py
If you’d like to edit your file (because you already edited it with your own tickers), insert two lines after this line:
self.name = self._removeIllegalChars(quote[0])
Make it look like this:
self.name = self._removeIllegalChars(quote[0]) if self.name == "": self.name = self.tickerThis replaces the empty security name with its ticker. I tested the change with Money Plus Sunset Edition and it worked. It will still work after Yahoo fixes its problems.
Harry Sit says
Sorry some formatting didn’t come through in the previous comment. You will need a tab in front of the “self.name = self.ticker” line and make it indent. Look at other if statements in the script for examples.
Bill says
The fix in post #55 works great!! Thanks for keeping this going. I have this page bookmarked and look here first if I ever have any problems.
RonS says
The fix in post 65 works ok. I am running the Money Plus Sunset addition and all stocks update as usually. All the NYSE stocks in the .ofx file has the stock symbol for the name and money had no problems importing the data.
Thanks for the update.
Ron
Richie says
Wow – glad I found this page….
Am using Money’04 – and I tried the script and after couple tries did get it to import into Money and it goes to reconciliation screen for the dummy investment account I set up, BUT, it doesn’t update any of the security prices! Hmmmm.
Well, after reading some of the comments that indicated can still get quotes online, I tried – and wow, I can! (I do have to start Money with a date about 5 years ago so the option to do online updates is there, but I can change the system date back to the real date as soon as Money is loaded up. I wonder if I need to do something like this to get the .ofx file to update the prices? Or is it some other issue…. hmmm; but, as long as I can get quotes online from Money that’s easier still than the script/python.)
Hung Le says
Richie,
Re: OFX update. It is likely a different issue. It is my observation that for MM2005 and earlier, the zero share scheme (having zero share position in the import OFX statement) will not work.You will need force actual transaction: add/remove shares.
John says
Does anyone know if you can use the set-the-clock-back trick for the Sunset Edition? I have the 2007 version and didn’t want to go newer if that trick doesn’t work.
?
Sterling says
As we all know we can no longer get stock price updates in Money…I appear to have stumbled on a simple way to still download quotes directly into Money.
I am running Money 2007 Deluxe….Go to Portfolio Manager….Go to Update Prices….then click on Update Automatically (every 30 min.) and low a behold all prices in your accounts are updated. Please let me know if it works for you.
RickS says
“As we all know we can no longer get stock price updates in Money”
As of today, this is incorrect.
I am running Money 2006 Deluxe in the US.
…. and all stock quotes are still automatically updated daily.
That’s not to say it won’t go away soon…. but it hasn’t stopped yet.
Grace DiVecchio says
Re post 172 — Darned if it didn’t work. and Portfolio Total Value continued to update automatically, as I watched. Thanks Sterling.
Sterling W. says
There is a much simpler way to update all your investment prices in Money.
Forget the OFX files and dummy accounts….In money simply click on update prices….select automatic updates (every 30 minutes)….and vola Money will update all prices. This method worked for me in Money 2007 Deluxe.
Seems much simpler…with no fuss.
Sterling W.
CD says
I have not been able to work that approach.
Have you ‘installed’ the ‘sunset’ modification? Tried that, had no joy, so I rolled it back & am resetting the computers date (back to mid-Dec 2009) to get prices to update (I do get latest prices).
I have been canceling the the ‘update’ message when Money opens.
My original version was 2000 which I kept paying to re-subscribe until the end.
Bottom line is: If I allow the ‘update’ on the nag screen to load in will the Portfolio Manager Price Update work?
Thanks
John R says
My Microsoft Money Deluxe 2007 is not updating with the 30 minute auto mode. I have been using the OFX files with success. The one challenge that I have is that when importing the prices into Microsoft Money it adds a day. So today, Feb 28 got imported as Mar 1. I can change the date on my calender and do to see the prices but it is a pain. Any ideas what I am doing wrong or what I need to reset to import todays prices at todays date?
Thanks for all of your help and this great tool.
Jim Clayton says
Still trying to make this thing work. I have Money Plus Deluxe 07 edition CD. I foolishly downloaded and installed Sunset edition, thus “freezing” the price download ability. I tried re-installing my ’07 edition. Upon installation completion, it messsages that updates are required to work. So I click, and after updating the program, I still can’t update prices and my frequency to update is locked in 60 minutes – not adjustable.
So, I’m back where I started, with nothing workable. If anyone can help me understand how to get back to my original ’07 working Money, I’ll try to update, install the dummy accounts, anything. Aargg!
Thanks.
Harry Sit says
@Jim – What’s wrong with Hung Le’s Java program? It works with the Sunset edition out of the box.
Mike Marando says
Like some others have said and I posted I think back on 2/4/11, My Money 2007 Deluxe still updates itself every day – how long this will continue I don’t know.
Paul UK says
I am running MS Money 2000 Standard in the UK and have installed it on Win 98, XP, and 7 systems as I upgraded computers. The portfolio share prices failed to update on Feb 11 2011 and for a few subsequent days, but now 15 minute auto updates are working correctly again. I wonder if MS have rethought their plug-pull policy, or am I just hoping? Surely it would cost MS very little to continue support for share prices or perhaps users could pay for the service continuation?
Grace DiVecchio says
I’m running MS Money 2007 Deluxe and Windows 7 — and automatic Portfolio updates have been working for over a week. The Java script thing worked briefly last month and then crashed. E-Trade’s download feature worked, but you had to have both programs up at the same time. The “Update every 30 minutes” worked, but it was a few extra steps. And then “Voila” — I did not have to do anything and the minute I opened the program, all values updated.. I believe that MSFT decided to continue support, at least for now, and just not tell anyone. Typical. So I’m good again – until the next crisis! Sure appreciated all the feedback from this site. It kept me going when I needed the help.
John R says
I am using Money Premium and my auto updates are not working. I am jealous of all of you that it is working. It doesn’t sound like you reset anything – it just happened.
whm says
Quotes have not worked for the past three days. Keep getting the following message:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\MSmoney\Quotes\quotes.py”, line 291, in
sec.getQuote()
File “C:\Documents and Settings\My Documents\MSmoney\Quotes\quotes.py”, line 117, in getQuote
csv = urllib2.urlopen(url).read()
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 126, in urlopen
return _opener.open(url, data, timeout)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 397, in open
response = meth(req, response)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 510, in http_response
‘http’, request, response, code, msg, hdrs)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 429, in error
result = self._call_chain(*args)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 369, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 605, in http_error_302
return self.parent.open(new, timeout=req.timeout)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 391, in open
response = self._open(req, data)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 409, in _open
‘_open’, req)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 369, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 1170, in http_open
return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
File “C:\Python26\lib\urllib2.py”, line 1145, in do_open
raise URLError(err)
urllib2.URLError:
Harry Sit says
@whm – Download the latest quotes.py script. It will tell you which ticker runs into a problem. Go to Yahoo! and verify you are using the correct ticker Yahoo! understands.
whm says
TFB,
For some reason, the script I was using that produced errors 3 days running worked today without making any modifications. Anyway, I downloaded the latest script and will start using it from now on.
Thank you for the help.
kasm says
I’m getting the same error messages as whm in post 184 even with the latest script. Started having problems a few days ago. The ticker it fails on is not always the same. I have about 60 tickers and it seems like it times out after processing about a quarter of them, failing on different tickers each time. It think it’s a timeout issue.
BTW, I like the new script that output the ticker and quote as it progresses.
RonS says
If you are going to be unable to update your Quotes for a few days here is a way to keep from missing them.
To update stock prices on days that you may be gone make these changes
to the quotes.py file. (I would keep a copy of the original quotes.py file)
I Renamed the file to MyQuotes.py
1) Create a new “_date2()” Veriable.
Copy and paste these 2 lines:
def _date():
return time.strftime(“%Y%m%d%H%M%S”,time.localtime())
and Modify like this. (Just delete %H%M%S)
def _date2():
return time.strftime(“%Y%m%d”,time.localtime())
2)At the bottom (3 lines up from bottom) Modify follows:
From: fileName = “quotes.ofx”
to: fileName = “quotes”+_date2()+”.ofx”
3) Comment out the last statement (so Money does not launch)
From: os.startfile(fileName)
to: # os.startfile(fileName)
4) Save and close quotes.py
OFX File names will look like this quotesYYYYMMDD.ofx. (quotes20110329.ofx).
Each day will be a different file name with the date in the name.
To make this work you will need to setup a scheduled task to run, each day of the week, as follows.
1) Goto Control Panel/Scheduled tasks/add scheduled task.. This launches the scheduled task Wizard.
2) Click “Next”
3) Select the file to be run on schedule. (quotes.py)
4) Select “Weekly” on next screen then Next.
5) Select Start time for task. (Give a couple of hours for exchanges & Funds to up date their prices) I used 6:15 PM.
Every “1” weeks.
Select the days of the week (Monday thru Friday).
Click Next
6) Enter user name & password for the account you will use to run this task on this computer. IF you don’t enter a username and password the task will not run. (The user needs to have the privilage to awake the computer from standby). Click Next
7) Click on “open advanced properties” box and click Finish
8) On the next screen goto Settings tap and click on “Wake the computer to run this task”. Then Apply
9) You need to leave your computer running in “Standby” while you are gone.
To update your Money portfolio do the following.
1) Open Money
2) File/import…/downloaded statement…
3) Select file to Import (Oldest file first) and Leave Money finish it’s job before importing the next file in date sequence one at a time.
I used this too update 1 1/2 weeks of data over 2 weekends and it worked fine.
Ron
John says
Do you know how I can download open prices from Stock Quotes Provided by MSN Money into excel 2010? Open prices are not one of the standard downloads.
lull says
I have downloaded Ultrasoft money link, now I am able to move data from my MS Money 2006 to MS Excel 2003. But how do I get MS excel to provide me the information in the familiar MS Money way. I figure this is really the Only way to beat Microsoft corp since they kinda abandoned MS Money.
Charles says
I’ve been able to keep using the Money04 Online Quotes to update prices (by doing the rollback of system date before launching money), but as of Mon Jun 13, none of my mutual fund prices are updating – only stock prices. Up until Friday the 10th (2011), both mutual fund and stock prices were updating.
It looks as if the Money site itself historical quotes NAV is dated as of Friday the 10th and they only update once a week – I wonder if when Friday rolls around if online will update?????????? Anyone else notice problem with mutual funds using online quotes?
I would use the script, but it just doesn’t work with Money04: seems Money04 requires a change in the on-hand quantity of shares in the dummy account to update price.
lull says
My MS Money updated the mutual fund prices, but doesnt give the percent change. Is the one week change correct for the mutual funds.
R Tandon says
Knew this was going to happen someday, after I learnt several months ago that MS will discontinue Internet services. Like most other folks here, I checked out AceMoney etc., but none were as appealing as MS Money. But for some reason, online quote updates kept working for me (I am an MS Money 2007 Deluxe user), until today. Today for the first time, mutual fund quotes have quit updating. I will definately try the scripts for updating quotes, using the method mentioned here, but I have a question.
How will adding new transactions work? I.e. when I buy a new security, it typically went out to some MAN server to pull up the security name, symbol etc. At least that’s how I was using it.
Please advise.
Thanks,
RTandon
S.W. says
R.T.
I too have seen that mutual fund prices didn’t seem to update because the
‘change’ field for mutuals always indicates “unch”. After closer review, I
noticed that the mutual fund prices were actually updating after I clicked
on update prices and unchecked ‘automatic updates’ and then re-checked
automatic updates. The field that does not appear to work is the amount of
‘change’ for mutual funds from previous price. I’m running MS Money 2006
Plus and am relying on it to keep track of a portfolio comprised of over a
dozen investment accounts.
S.W.
Mo Cup says
I too have the mutual fund problem that seems to break all the Change values. Does this problem also affect the Total Return fields? Also can anyone here fix this problem?
Harry Sit says
I just tested this in Money Plus Deluxe Sunset Edition. Although the “Change” column says “unch” the prices do get updated. So do the market values and cumulative gains or losses.
Mo Cup says
I’m using Money 2007 Deluxe. The Last price for mutual funds doesn’t get updated automatically anymore. If I use a python script the price will update but the fields for Change and % change both say “unch”. Also in my Status Bar I have selected “Today’s Total Change” and that give a value of $0.00 (+0.00%) in this .mny file where there are only mutual funds. Shouldn’t the application itself compute these values from the price of the fund?
Harry Sit says
@Mo Cup – I’m only using the python script. See my screenshots. Note I have one stock and two mutual funds in the test account. The quotes.py script updates all prices, market values, and the Gain column. I removed the Change column because it always says unch. I also have Today’s Total Change saying $0.00 (+0.00%) but the total market value and YTD Total Return do change after an update. That’s the best you can do with the script. As long as the prices and market values get updated, I’m OK with it.
Luca says
Problem: updating today (July,2nd) all stocks appear as updated on July 3rd and becasue the date is in the future, the right “last prices” are not displayed. Looking into .ofx file i found the following text 20110703. How can i fix it (i’m not a programmer….)
Question: how can i track EURO stocks/funds? should i create two different dummy accounts (one EURO and one USD) and two different .ofx files?
thanks
Luca
Chip says
For last couple days, the quote update will import huge price on some stock. Is anyone run into this kind of issue? I am running MS money sunset with Win7-64 bit.
Thanks.
Chip
Leo says
All of a sudden, my MS Money update of mutual funds has stopped working.
Here’s the error message:
C:\Users\Leo>d:\python26\quotes.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “D:\python26\quotes.py”, line 253, in
sec.getQuote()
File “D:\python26\quotes.py”, line 90, in getQuote
timeStruct = time.strptime(quote[2] + ” ” + quote[3], “%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p”)
File “D:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py”, line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File “D:\Python26\lib\_strptime.py”, line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data ‘N/A N/A’ does not match format ‘%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p’
Any ideas as to what’s wrong?
RonS says
Responce to Leo (201) I am having the same problem. Every thing worked fine on Friday, but my Monday update did not occure.
After reading Leo’s comment I ran quotes.py this morning and I get the same error
message.
Win XP SP3, with Python 27
Ron
Harry Sit says
@Leo, @RonS – It depends on what Yahoo returns for your ticker. Try this in your browser:
http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?f=nl1d1t1&s=VTSMX
Replace the ticker VTSMX in the end with your own fund’s ticker. For VTSMX, Yahoo returned
“VANGUARD INDEX TR”,32.91,”7/18/2011″,”6:25pm”
That’s correct, with a date and time. It looks like Yahoo returned “N/A” and “N/A” for a fund in your list. Which fund is it?
Leo says
When I tried your suggestion, a .csv file was downloaded & opened with Excel. I assume this is correct, so far. Several of them did not download the proper information to the csv file. However, if I tried the failed one a second time, it would work. This might explain what I saw a few weeks back. It failed when I tried quotes.py asit is doing now. But, when I tried it again it worked OK. Now, it’s permanently broken.
I hope you understand what I’ve written.
Leo says
Let me add more. Try VFIIX. It works, but then doesn’t work.
R Tandon says
Response to Chip:
I’m having the same problem. For sometime the quote updates worked well. But as of the last few days, one or more quotes displays a very large price during the download, something like 50554460.xx.80 . Looks like an error resonse from the website perhaps.
Harry Sit says
@Leo – Try changing “finance.yahoo” to “download.finance.yahoo” in this line in quotes.py:
url = “http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=%s&f=nl1d1t1” % self.ticker
See if it helps.
Leo says
I’ll try it, but will it work? Your suggestion in #203 doesn’t always work all the time.
Tried it. Doesn’t work.
RonS says
I tried to down a Yahoo portfilio to Excel, which I do alot, and all I get is garbage. There is definitly something wrong at Yahoo.
Ron
Harry Sit says
@Leo – If Yahoo doesn’t consistently return the quotes to you, I don’t think there’s anything you can do. The quotes.py script is simply acting like the browser pulling quotes from Yahoo. If it doesn’t work for you in the browser, the script won’t work either. Both addresses are working for me, all the time, with VFIIX as well.
Leo says
Your analysis is correct and makes sense to me. There is at least one other person with this trouble. How can I/we bring this to the attention of Yahoo?
Hal says
From 203–” @Leo, @RonS – It depends on what Yahoo returns for your ticker. Try this in your browser:
http://finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?f=nl1d1t1&s=VTSMX
Replace the ticker VTSMX in the end with your own fund’s ticker. For VTSMX, Yahoo returned”
=============
Try DELL for ticker***
I get the following return:
Inc. 505545600 1/1/1970 8:01pm
Notice the stock price!!!
Harry Sit says
@Hal – I tried this just now
http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?f=nl1d1t1&s=DELL
It returns
“Dell Inc.”,17.42,”7/19/2011″,”4:00pm”
Looks normal to me. It seems the problem is either intermittent or location specific. I don’t know what’s going on. Usually these problems go away after a few days.
bill says
It looks like every time the script is run the price is returning the weird number on different tickers each time, with the “NA NA” issue happening on different ones too. For example I ran it once and Apple had the odd price, and on the second time it didn’t and something else did. Hopefully Yahoo will get fixed soon and this is a temporary hiccup.
Hal says
It appears what Bill describes in #214 is happening..
Hal says
YAHOO DOWNLOAD STILL HAVING ISSUES AT MY END VIA PY SCRIP..
bill says
Like other Yahoo problems, this one will probably take a few days to sort out. I am developing a .NET Windows program that will download quotes and create an OFX file and am seeing the exact same behavior from Yahoo, it isn’t the fault of TFB’s script at all.
Leo says
A “few days to sort out” has been almost two weeks! I’ve switched over to the Java version. It still doesn’t update the prices for ETFs, but I only have 3 of those, so I do them manually.
http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/java-app-to-update-quotes/
bill says
If anyone would like to try a solution I am developing in case Yahoo never gets fixed 🙂 you are welcome to try a tool I have developed. It is a Windows program that will let you specify a ticker list graphically, then let you modify what Yahoo is sending down before you create the OFX file.
I don’t want to hijack TFB’s thread with this, I’m just trying to develop a solution to give back a little after what TFB has done in making MS Money usable post-sunset. TFB if you don’t want this thread to be a discussion area for this effort I totally understand and discussions can happen at my place, just say the word.
http://syntap.com/blog/?p=82
Just to manage expectations, I’m only looking to to what TFB’s script does while Yahoo isn’t working. Please don’t ask for options/currency/whatever has already been discussed in this thread.
tom says
There is definately something going on with the Yahoo quotes server, I have been having the N/A N/A problem for the past week. The quotes returned have the name truncated the price is not right and the date/time is always 1/1/1970 8:01pm. Failures are random, I have multiple portfolios with a combination of funds and stocks.
Running various quotes direct from the url returns garbage as well. This is one result for RCL (Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines)
l Caribbean Cruis 505545632 1/1/1970 8:01pm
Tom says
Okay I just downloaded the java app, and used the Yahoo option to download two quotes: RCL and IBM
The results were not stellar:
IBM rnational Busines 505545504.0000 1/1/1970 8:01pm
RCL I Caribbean Cruise 505545504.0000 1/1/1970 8:01pm
This confirms to me that Yahoo Quote server is having issues.
Sterling says
I’m running money 2007 plus….in recent weeks mutual fund prices stopped
downloading for me too….then some days mutual fund prices would sometimes
download, but the change amount for that day would not be posted. Now today
(Friday 7/22) the mutual fund prices downloaded perfectly including the
amount of change from the previous price…I can’t understand why this
randomly works. It seems that when I’ve had this problem with automatically
downloading mutual fund prices, the prices seem to always work at the end of
the week on Fridays. Does that make any sense ?? What makes Fridays so
special to the MS Money program. Oh, I also have a few ETF’s and those
prices seem to always download each day just like individual stock prices.
Go figure !!
hleofxquotes says
FYI, hleofxquotes also support an alternate quote source: Google. For folks who are having issues with Yahoo might wan to give that a try.
As a data point, I am using Yahoo quote source on daily basis and have not seen the corrupted data recently. For those who are having problems, I wonder if you can provide additional information such as: where you are geographically and time/date when problem occurs. Just curious more than anything else.
Harry Sit says
Please feel free to use alternative solutions to this simplistic script. They have have many improvements.
hle-ofx-quotes by Hung Le: a Java application with graphical user interface
PocketSense by Robert: a more user-friendly package of Python scripts with menus and config options
bill says
Yahoo seems to be returning correct info at the moment, I am downloading quotes to SunsetOFX and they aren’t causing problems. The python script may be back in business.
For any interested, SunsetOFX will now optionally download quotes from Google.
If you are set up in Money for TFB’s python method, SunsetOFX should get you back up and quoting if Yahoo decides to to bad again or if you’d like to use quotes from Google.
http://syntap.com/blog/?p=82
Leo says
Hooray! I agree Yahoo seems to be back to normal.
RonS says
I finally recieved good data today with no glitches. All the quotes seem to be correct.
Ron
RonS says
A Message from Yahoo
Hello Ron,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Finance.
I understand you’re seeing incorrect or inconsistent data when
downloading quotes to a CSV file from Yahoo! Finance. I appreciate you
taking the time to report this issue and I apologize for any
inconvenience caused.
Our engineering team is currently working to correct this, and our goal
is to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Again, I apologize for any inconvenience this issue has caused. If you
have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us back.
We’re always more than happy to help and we appreciate all feedback that
helps us identify ways to constantly maintain and improve our services.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Finance.
Regards,
Charles
Finance E2Y
Harry Sit says
If Yahoo has problems again, please report it to Yahoo with this form:
Yahoo! Finance Help Form
Tell them this link is returning bad data:
http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?f=nl1d1t1&s=YHOO
Only Yahoo can fix it.
Joan Reece says
I run a Python script to retrieve daily mutual fund prices from Yahoo to update same in Money (Money Plus Deluxe) and some of the prices are wrong. These wrong prices are in the Python output file (quotes.ofx). Is anyone else getting wrong prices for mutual funds when retrieving them from Yahoo through a Python script?
RonS says
Respone to 230, Joan,
Because the MF Co’s need to run their portfilio update processes after the market closes. Mutual Fund prices do not update on Yahoo (or anywhere else) until sometime after the market closes, in some cases after 5PM ET.
Build a Yahoo portifilo of your MFs and observe the time when the prices get updated. Then run your update program after that time. I run mine at 6:15 CT
Ron
RonS says
Second responce to 230. 8/10/2011
I checked my last 3 downloads and I see the wrong date for some of the quotes. The quotes are right for the date shown in the ofx file.
I tried running this url
http://download.finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=YHOO,vgtsx,ge&f=nl1d1t1
on Yahoo and sometimes I get the right date and sometimes I get a different date. For stocks the wrong date is always 8/2/2011, and for MF the wrong date always seems to be 8/1/2011.
Wrong Quotes: (Run on 8/10/2011)
“Yahoo! Inc.”,12.76,”8/2/2011″,”4:00pm”
“VANGUARD TOTAL IN”,15.99,”8/1/2011″,”5:52pm”
“General Electric “,17.21,”8/2/2011″,”4:00pm”
Right Quotes: (Run on 8/10/2011)
“Yahoo! Inc.”,11.77,”8/10/2011″,”4:00pm”
“VANGUARD TOTAL IN”,13.74,”8/10/2011″,”5:54pm”
“General Electric “,15.09,”8/10/2011″,”4:01pm”
I reported this information to Yahoo finance in and error report.
Ron
JoanR says
RonS,
Thank you for your replies including letting me know that you submitted an error report to Yahoo. In regard to the timing of pulling the daily mutual fund prices from Yahoo I run the Python script at 6:30 PM through a Microsoft Scheduled Task.
One other problem that I have had is updating the daily price for the Tweedy Browne Global Value Fund in Money. Although the Python script output file (quotes.ofx) contains this fund’s daily price, the price does not consistently get updated in Money. At this time it is not working. It mysteriously started working sometime before the Yahoo problem that got fixed on July 25. After that fix, the daily price for that Tweedy fund in Money stopped updating.
I am going to look back through the various users’ comments on this page to see if anyone else has been able to use a different source for daily prices as there have been a number of problems with using Yahoo and therefore it puts into question the confidence of relying on the mutual fund data in Money.
Bill says
Yeah, the quotes still seem to be funny at times. I have a few mutual funds with prices a few days old even now, and those prices are what would download so it appears to have wrong prices when in fact they might just be old. That’s part of the purpose of SunsetOFX, you can see the quotes and change dates and make corrections graphically before creating the OFX file.
If the Yahoo quotes look bad, you can download the Google ones to see if you have any better luck.
http://syntap.com/blog/?p=82
The Dude says
Well, I can’t live without Microsoft money. So here what I did: Created an account with yodlee.com. Setup all my accounts there. From their transactions screen that has all account’s transactions. I download an excel file with all accounts transactions. Then from that I create OFX file for each account and import them. Since I’m a software developer, I developed the whole thing to be done with a single button click and it does it all 3 minutes latter I go check money for all my new transactions.
ARMLJ5 says
I know this is off topic, but before I can try the suggestions above I need to migrate my data from MS Money 2003 Standard into Sunset version. 🙁
Anyone able to advise – I’ve searched high and low without finding a solution that works. At this point the best I can do is to create Account Transactions and Investment Transactions reports that I can export to Excel as .csv files (the “Send To” options do not work as MS Money crashes / produces emtpy xml data).
Anyone able to help with the next step?
David says
After not having any problems with the Python script for many months, I’m just now getting an error. Can anyone help with this?
****************************************************
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\David\Documents\Money\quotes.py”, line 311, in
sec.getQuote()
File “C:\Users\David\Documents\Money\quotes.py”, line 153, in getQuote
timeStruct = time.strptime(quote[2] + ” ” + quote[3], “%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p”)
File “C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py”, line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File “C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py”, line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data ‘N/A N/A’ does not match format ‘%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p’
Harry Sit says
@David – Yahoo! had this problem back in the summer. Read from comment 201 on down. You either tell Yahoo! to fix it or just wait until they fix it on their own. Or you use one of the alternatives mentioned in the comments.
Luca says
Hi. I need help on bond prices.
when i import bond price (ie ticker X09142.TI) the price is uploades as 100 times the real price (ie the market price is 100.55 and appears as 10,055.00 in Money). below what appears in .OFX file.
X09142.TI
TICKER
4.875 A2A 13
X09142.TI
100.55
someone can help me?
thanks
Luca
Bill says
MS Money does not seem to track bonds the same way as stocks. Price updates as I understand them are updated based on percentage of par value, as opposed to par value itself. Check out the two links below, I don’t know if there is an easy answer other than sticking to manual updates for bonds. I only track a few I and EE bonds and I handle those manually. But once you figure out what MS Money is doing with the quote, it may be possible to download the quote into SunsetOFX along with your other quotes and manually adjust the price to be a percentage or whatever it is MS Money is looking for. A pain but still less so that the steps needed within MS Money for a manual price update.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/283846
http://www.cdnbusinessdirectory.com/microsoft-money/2956-bond-price-updates
Luca says
Bill, thanks for your prompt answer!
Given the fact that all bond have a ticker (I checked for Italian bonds but I guess is the same for the oders), should be simple create a subrutine that write the favue divided by 100 in the .OFX file, just for bonds.
this will import the right prices into Money.
I can’t make it by myself because I’m not used to Phyton, sorry 🙁
Thanks
Luca
Jim Clayton says
Thanks to you and others, I’ve been able to continue using Money by downloading quotes via Hung Le’s applet.
BUT now, my new Windows 7 compute has a Java/Windows problem I can’t seem to lick. I can’t download/upgrade Java and current Java apparently won’t fully uninstall. So, I can’t access Java. When going through the process, I encounter a 1723 error code stating that a .dll is missing. The Java site is no help and Control Panel shows Java installed but it isn’t. Some way, I think I have to get all traces of Java off my compute before I can re-install Java. From web browsing, this seems to be a fairly common problem. However, I can’t find a common solution. Any help or advice from you or your readers would be very much appreciated.
Bill says
Luca, I am not a Python expert either, but if you want to try SunsetOFX (a Windows program, not a Python script) you can adjust the bond ticker price before it gets sent to MS Money.
Jim, if no one has a Java-based solution then this page’s Python solution or SunsetOFX (see post 19) should be workable alternatives for a Windows 7 user.
hleofxquotes says
Jim, I have not run across that problem before.
John says
Is anyone having trouble dowloading their prices into sunset tonight 6-26-2012. I have tried it on three computers and get a corrupted file and cannot import. Is it just me tonight. I have been using this script for years.
Fer says
TFB: I appreciate very much this script. It has saved me a lot of data entry time. I have a quick q re mutual funds… I have some canadian mutual funds. I included the codes Yahoo has for them, but it fails when it attempts to get the canadian m fund information. It seems Google has the actual fund codes. How could I treat those? Would it be a quick change to have the script pull fund info from Google? thnx
Alan says
We downloaded the script. Since it was in HTML, had to reformat the entire file so it would run, i.e. separate the lines, add indetation, etc. Now it runs and gets all the prices, and creates a OFX file, but money has trouble reading it, even though I have created a dummy investment file. All the comments above, and non talks about having to go thru all the pain we went thru to fix the format and get it to run w/o syntex error. Can you guys help?
Thanks
Alan
Alan says
Basically, we either need to have the script that runs w/o having to make any changes to it, or a sampe, OFX file to see how the one we generated differs and why money is having problem with it.
Thanks
Alan
Matt says
Thanks for the script. I have been using MS Money 2000 for 12 years and the online quotes worked for me just fine until September 6 of this year. This script is now working for me. Thanks also to Jeff’s clarification on setting the units from 0 to 1, once I realized this was a modification to the Python script I was in business.
Charlie says
To follow up to Matt and Jeff, I changed the units to 0.001, to keep the amount in the Dummy investment to the minimum. Works great. I was worried after Money stopped automatic updates last week, but I’m back in business. Thanks!
Jim Clayton says
I guess I’m confused by the importance of the dummy account.
I’ve been using the OFX update created by Henry for over a year.
I created a dummy account tha has no entries in it. My numerous holdings/trackings in a quantity of MS Money accounts load and update with no problem.
So, what’s the use of entering the asset names or symbols into the dummy account?
Jim
Chris says
Henry and TFB
Thank you all for the Money OFX script.
Have got it working with my Money2000 but as per Luca’s comment above the accounts are set up in pounds not pence – which is how the yahoo quotes are delivered to OFX. Have tried to rework the script but am no Python expert as well – surely there must be a way to divide the quote by 100 prior to writing it to OFX.
Have tried to use SunsetOFX as well, but for some reason it crashes after the first quote retrieval.
Many thanks to anybody that can help out
Harry says
Chris – If you only need to divide the quote by 100, find this on line 76 in quotes.py:
self.price = quote[1]
Make it
self.price = quote[1] / 100
Bill says
Chris – If you’d like me to check out what is making SunsetOFX crash on you let me know via the blog link in #219… with your tickers.xml file I should be able to hunt down what the trouble is for the quotes you are pulling up.
Chris says
Harry and Bill – thanks for your replies.
Bill – would like to try to get Harry’s script working as it is so convenient, but will be in touch if not.
Harry – thought I had tried that solution – but maybe I got the syntax wrong or something. Home tomorrow so will see how I get on
Thanks
Chris
Gary says
Is there a way to get price updates in MS Money 2001? When I try to import, it says “Import Complete”, but the prices don’t change. The same file will import into Money Sunset without any problem, so the problem is not with the OFX files. I have tried both Pocket Sense and Hleofxquotes and both work the same way. I wanted to stay with the 2001 version if possible, because the layout is much larger (no wasted space) and when prices are updated manually, high/low target alerts will pop up. Any help will be appreciated.
Gary
Harry says
Gary – Older versions don’t like the number of units of 0. Try change the number of units to 1 or 0.001 as Charlie mentioned on Sept. 15, 2012. It’s on line 130 of quotes.py.
_field(“UNITS”, “0”),
Make it
_field(“UNITS”, “1”),
You will need to exclude the dummy investment account from your net worth and other reports because now it will have some value.
Chris says
Harry
As per #253 I’m getting
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 240, in
sec.getQuote()
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 81, in getQuote
self.price = quote[1]/100
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: ‘str’ and ‘int’
Line 81 for me due to my ticker list
Thanks
Gary says
Harry,
Thanks for your reply. I changed the units in the quotes.py file, but still got no updates on the stock prices in MM 2001. I may have to keep the MM Sunset version.
Gary
Harry says
Chris – Try
self.price = float(quote[1]) / 100
Chris says
Harry – thought you had cracked it – producing good numbers and then
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 250, in
content = writer.createContent(currency)
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 223, in createContent
self._invStmt(currency),
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 151, in _invStmt
self._invPosList()
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 115, in _invPosList
posstock.append(self._pos(“stock”, stock.ticker, stock.price, stock.quoteTime))
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 136, in _pos
_field(“UNITPRICE”, price),
File “C:\Users\Chris\Money Quotes\Money Quotes.py”, line 33, in _field
return “”+value
TypeError: cannot concatenate ‘str’ and ‘float’ objects
Cheers
Chris
Harry says
Chris – One more try.
self.price = str(float(quote[1]) / 100)
Chris says
Harry
Thats got it !!
Many thanks for your help
Chris
Chris W says
Thanks Harry, I’m a different Chris but appreciate the
self.price = str(float(quote[1]) / 100) line.
By the way, because I wanted to keep an eye on the FTSE I added an if statement:
if self.ticker == “^FTSE”:
self.price = quote[1]
else:
self.price = str(float(quote[1]) / 100)
What seems to be amazing is that for some reason it updates prices whenever you run the script not just once a day! Don’t ask me why, but it does for me. By the way, for reference, I’m using MM 2001 Personal and Business edition. I’ve also added the ^FTSE as the last stock listed after all my normal stocks.
Does this work for anyone else? Have I stumbled upon something quite useful?
Chris W
Eric Desfonds says
Like many, I am now looking for an alternative, using MSMoney 2000 since day one, in Canada.
Beyond the units == 0 issues, which I fixed by having units = 0.001.
My last residual problem is Mutual funds in Canada, the tickers are very odd in Yahoo, here is an example for
BMO Guardian Monthly High Income, where the ticker is actuall “F0CAN05N8I.TO”
Using “F0CAN05N8I.TO” in the stocks or funds array returns an error message due to the timestamp, see below. I would need some ideas on how to simply record today’s date all the time.
I believe, basically that these funds do not have timestamp, only a closing price.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\(…)\quotes.py”, line 231, in
sec.getQuote()
File “C:\(…)\quotes.py”, line 73, in getQuote
timeStruct = time.strptime(quote[2] + ” ” + quote[3], “%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p”)
File “C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py”, line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File “C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py”, line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data ‘N/A 10:-230am’ does not match format ‘%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p’
Eric Desfonds says
Follow up, basically the csv file download is empty, for example, the URL created for the above fund downloads:
“F0CAN05N8I.TO”,0.00,”N/A”,”N/A”
So the price, date and time are invalid, this is not related to the fund name per se, but the quotes.csv format key requires a slight change
Example from another stock that works:
“LEONOVUS INC”,0.16,”9/28/2012″,”12:26pm”
Having a lot of time on my hands right now (knee surgery, so am bed ridden), I am reading up the Wiki for quotes.csv via http://code.google.com/p/yahoo-finance-managed/wiki/csvQuotesDownload, I have been unable to find another key that gets the right date format.
I will try to spend some time to integrate Google as another feed source. will share results afterwards.
Eric Desfonds says
I tried to cut and past my Google version here, but it did not work, please contact me if you are interested. A few issues
1) Google does not return the year, so I injected the gmtime() year into the sequence (if not the OFX has a 1900 year so updates were not working)
2) I removed all text before the “$” symbol, which may cause issues with multi-currency portfolios
3) I removed the “time zone” text since the %Z parsing was not working. Not a worry for me since I now update once a day late at night, but for people with portfolios where time is critical this could be a concern (anyways MSMoney only updates pricing once a day officially).
I can email my code for your review if you are interested, just contact me.
Chris says
Chris W – was interested in your FTSE script. Unfortunately with my version of MM2000 I got one update and then it froze the whole account – not quite what I was hoping for.
Gary # 259 if I can sum up what appears to be the behaviour of Harry’s script with ~MM2000….
– you will get an update of valuation and profit/loss whenever you run the script – sadly no daily change or price update. However, as mentioned above, MM does consider Friday differently and if you run the script at the weekend after the market closes you will also get an update of the prices.
Bigguy says
This is probably the wrong forum for my problem. I am attempting to install PocketSense. At the “setup Python File”, I am looking at “Main Menu” in what looks like the command prompt. I am trying to add an account. When it comes up, there is a curser at the bottom after “Selection: [0] _” I enter “1”, then up jumps “Site List” with the three sample accounts. Below that is the command “Enter Site #: [0] _ . What am I supposed to enter at this curser? I’m pretty stupid about this stuff, and have been searching for instructions for this for a couple hours! Anyone who could help a senior citizen would certainly be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
CDamico says
As of today 11/3/12 Money is up to it’s old tricks. It would start to load , then disappear. I changed the date of my computer to 11/3/11 & it works as before. Any suggestion as to how to prevent this?
CDamico says
I reinstalled Money. It installed OK. Once I restored my backup file it shut down. It still works if I change the date of my PC to 2011. Once I change it back the next command shuts it down.
This is what was going on before Sunset version was issued.
Any help would be appreciated.
Jon says
Wow, this posting went on for years, cool!
I can see there are allot of folks that hate the sunset policies of various financial programs.
I was burned by Quicken and had to upgrade to get the express web connect to work again.
All I want is a simple checking account financial program that I can automatically update my checking account with, that HAS NO 3 YEAR TERM LIMITS ON!!!!
Probably to much to ask for.
But Quicken is so feature rich and none of the other programs; GNUCash, MoneyDance, etc. come close.
So, I guess I’m stuck with upgrading Quicken every 3 years. After all, Quicken has to protect their revenue stream.
David says
It looks like I am getting the old error related to the lack of a time stamp. The script does not know how to deal with an “N/A” for a time stamp. Other tickers that have a time stamp are pulled in without a problem. Does anyone have some advice? Thanks in advance.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “D:\Money\quotes.py”, line 329, in
sec.getQuote()
File “D:\Money\quotes.py”, line 171, in getQuote
timeStruct = time.strptime(quote[2] + ” ” + quote[3], “%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p”)
File “C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py”, line 454, in _strptime_time
return _strptime(data_string, format)[0]
File “C:\Python27\lib\_strptime.py”, line 325, in _strptime
(data_string, format))
ValueError: time data ‘N/A N/A’ does not match format ‘%m/%d/%Y %I:%M%p’
Daryl Reece says
For what it is worth, I had issues in late 2012 with Money just shutting down on OFX import. I traced it back to a Windows service patch. Check out http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2012/11/13/10367904.aspx. I think the offending Windows update is kb2756872.
CDamico says
I am/was having the OFX import problem. I only use money for checking account but having 10 years of data is hard to give up on.
I found a program thats called “MT2OFX – V3.5.37” that will handle certain bank downloads, OFC, OFX, QIF & convert them to what seems to be an OFX file that will import without shutting things down.
I download the file but don’t let it open MONEY, then I run it through the converter then import the new file into MONEY.
I don’t have a deep enough understanding to use the fix from the 2012/11/13/12 entry above but since mine are bank imports only, I’m getting by.
Here’s the link to the converter program: http://csmale.home.xs4all.nl/mt2ofx/en/index.htm
Hope this helps.
ameridan says
The dll issue that Daryl pointed to is actually quite easy to resolve as the fixed file is available on my blog http://microsoftmoneyoffline.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/windows-8-64-bit-version-compatibility-with-sunset-money/ assuming you are using the Retail or SUnset editions of Money Plus Deluxe OR Home & Business.
Louis says
This is a wonderful simple setup for getting all the required stock quotes for MS Money. However, Yahoo Finance does not seem to have Candaian mutual fund quotes but I could get them from Google Finance. So, how could I change it to use Google Finance for retrieving all the stock and mutual fund quotes. Thank you in advance for your help.
Harry says
PocketSense and hleOfxQuotes greatly improved upon the rudimentary script here. Please consider using those.