script to download Yahoo Finance data

[wes weston]

dan roberts wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> This is my first Python project so please bear with me. I need to
> download data from Yahoo Finance in CSV format. The symbols are
> provided in a text file, and the project details are included below.
> Does anyone have some sample code that I could adapt?
> 
> Many thanks in advance,
> dan
> 
> /*---NEED TO DO------*/
> Considering IBM as an example, the steps are as follows.
> 
> A. Part 1 - download 'Historical Prices' from
> http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ibm
> 1. Get the Start Date from the form at the top of this page,
> http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=IBM
> (I can provide the end date.)
> 2. Click on Get Prices
> 3. Then finally click on Download to Spreadsheet and save the file
> with a name like IBM_StartDate_EndDate.csv.
> (2) and (3) are equivalent to using this link directly,
> http://ichart.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=IBM&a=00&b=2&c=1962&d=05&e=30&f=2004&g=d&ignore=.csv
> Can you please post an example of a loop that would do the above for a
> series of company symbols, saved in a text file?
> 
> B. Part 2 - download 'Options' from http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ibm
> This seems more difficult because the data is in html format (there's
> no option to download CSV files). What's the easiest/best way to take
> care of this?

Dan,
    About the time you posted, yahoo changed the url
to download the history file. I use this too but,
hadn't used in a few weeks. I posted a little program
and sent it to you directly(I think). Well, later I
tried it and it didn't work.
    The odd thing was that totally within netscape,
if I asked for history bewtween Jun 1 2004 and
Jul 1 2004; yahoo returned eratic results. One time
it would end at Jun 21, then Jun 25, then Jul 1!!
I sent them mail about it. The last time I tried it
history worked ok.
    The python messages under yours have more details;
like the new url for the file.
wes