I need historical stock price information for stocks that don't
exist any more. Two examples are NLV and GIC, but I would like to
find a resource that would have historical price information for any
stock, whether it exists now or not. I need a time range from early
1995 to now, but earlier would be even better. Thanks. |
Request for Question Clarification by
omnivorous-ga
on
22 Jul 2003 21:15 PDT
Davis_ee --
I have a wonderful source for you; one that's not normally free -- but
which many libraries have available at no charge (online too!) It
would give you stocks dated back to the beginning of the 20th Century.
Would that suffice?
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
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Clarification of Question by
davis_ee-ga
on
23 Jul 2003 08:25 PDT
This would be fine as long as I can access it without going to the
library. Hopefully that is what you meant when you mentioned
"online". Also, it has to be accurate because I have some back-tax
issues that I have to resolve with the stock price information.
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Request for Question Clarification by
omnivorous-ga
on
23 Jul 2003 08:33 PDT
Davis_ee --
It will depend on your library system and what they subscribe to. The
recommended source is the New York Times, often available in Proquest
Historical Newspapers online. Our local library system (suburban
Seattle) has it available and it's an excellent way to track daily
stock prices. I've used it back to about 1900, though one has to be
careful because both company names and abbreviations can change (if
you're doing a text search). You can go directly to the Financial
pages and read through the stock tables too.
So that's your answer -- except for finding out if your local library
system has the service available.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
Clarification of Question by
davis_ee-ga
on
23 Jul 2003 12:52 PDT
Omnivorous --
My library does have ProQuest online and I tried it, but I cannot seem
to get stock prices. All of the newspapers (I tried The Wall Street
Journal and The New York Times) seem to omit the pages that have the
actual stock price listings. What am I missing?
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Request for Question Clarification by
omnivorous-ga
on
23 Jul 2003 13:17 PDT
Davis_ee --
In order to get stock prices, I've tried one of several strategies:
* a search on a date for the stock or stock symbol:
example: IBM, using a specific date, such as 10/2/1950 (U.S. format
date)
* find the date, then list all of the pages in the newspaper on
Proquest
-- getting the page image with stock tables (NYSE, AMEX or NASDAQ
* occasionally I'll also so a search for "stock prices" and it will
quickly find most-active and other summaries. The stock exchange
tables are on the same page.
Make sure that you learn (or have your reference librarian show you)
how to bring up a page image. Using Adobe Acrobat reader, you can
scroll around the page to find stock listings. Also, remember that
Acrobat allows you to magnify any print that appears too small (with
the magnifying glass).
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
Clarification of Question by
davis_ee-ga
on
24 Jul 2003 08:23 PDT
Omnivorous,
After some more checking I realized that the Proquest service that my
library offers is text only. When you are in the Proquest Newspapers
interface, there is no option to select "image". I've tried this for
the different papers that you mentioned and I never see the "image"
choice. My first hint that this was going to be the case was that the
link on my library's reference page refers to the Proquest service as
"Full-text". I think proquest must allow libraries to subscribe to
different levels of service depending on cost. So unfortunately, I
need another source for my online historical quotes. Any ideas?
Thanks.
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Request for Question Clarification by
omnivorous-ga
on
24 Jul 2003 08:27 PDT
Davis_ee --
The Proquest articles are provided in an Adobe Acrobat format, which
allows full-text search. Could you please post your library's phone
number/name -- I'll contact them to see how it's done.
Interestingly enough, I believe that Proquest changed the interface to
the NY Tiimes in the past week. The interface that I encountered at
my own library's online site yesterday was different.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
Clarification of Question by
davis_ee-ga
on
24 Jul 2003 10:58 PDT
Reference center at the Santa Rosa, CA public library: (707) 545-0831
|
Davis_ee --
I talked with the reference librarian at Santa Rosa: you can look
things up using The New York Times (and I'll explain further) but she
recommended:
Big Charts (home page)
http://www.bigcharts.com
It truly is an easier to way to pull stock quotes, if you know the
symbol. The database goes back into the 1980s -- I checked on several
stocks that way. Click on the tab marked "Historical Quotes" or use
this page directly. If you should hit a weekend day, the web result
tells you so -- it's a very convenient way to do it:
Big Charts
"Historical Quotes"
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/historical/
Yahoo also allows one to look up historical stock quotes on its
Finance site, but it requires registration:
Yahoo Finance
http://www.finance.yahoo.com/
In the Yahoo case you start by requesting a CURRENT quote for a stock
symbol, then once it's returned there's a menu allowing you to pull up
a HISTORICAL quote.
Finally, should you wish to use the NY Times, here's how it's done.
Surprisingly, there are different interfaces to Proquest Historical
Newspapers but they work similarly.
1. log into Proquest Newspaper collection in the Santa Rosa Library
2. Choose "Publication Search' and then the NY Times. Your library
has about 9 databases covering different years.
3. Pick a date range for what you're seeking.
4. Pick a specific date.
5. When the listing of articles comes up, choose a "Page Image" --
which will give you the entire page (you can magnify it using the
Adobe Acrobat viewer). Page 1 in older editions has the index; in
some more-recent editions the index is on page 2. Find the Financial
section and stock tables.
6. Use the Page selector to go directly to that page and the stock
tables.
In short, the Yahoo and BigChart option is much easier.
BTW, Santa Rosa's a favorite place of this researcher. When I last
played golf there I thought that the rattlesnake warning signs in the
clubhouse were a ruse for naive visitors. I quickly learned that they
weren't!
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA |
Request for Answer Clarification by
davis_ee-ga
on
25 Jul 2003 08:09 PDT
Omsivorous,
I'm still not getting the information that I need and here's why:
1) Bigcharts and Yahoo will NOT give you historical quotes for
companies that no longer exist. Try it yourself with these symbols
and dates: NLV in Sept/98, GIC in Sept/96. I know the prices for some
of these dates, but I need prices for other dates.
2) I talked to the reference desk at my library and the reference
person I talked to confirmed what I told you: they most likely
subscribe to the Proquest service that has text ONLY, no images (and
thus no stock listings). Perhaps you talked to a different person
that knows otherwise. Do you remember the name of the person? They
are researching it further to see if one of the other reference people
told you something different. They will let me know soon.
I'm coming very close to asking Google to repost my question because I
have not yet been able to get even ONE stock price for NLV or GIC in
the time frame that I need.
|
Clarification of Answer by
omnivorous-ga
on
25 Jul 2003 12:33 PDT
Davis_ee --
Why don't you give me the dates (and stocks) that you need and I'll
look them up. I'm pretty certain (one can never be sure with these
digital databases) that they have the ability to look this up with
Proquest by looking at page images -- because that's how the database
is stored -- in Adobe Acrobat format.
Sorry, but I don't know the reference librarian's name . . .
Another suggestion: the Santa Rosa library may also have better access
to a San Francisco newspaper for that period that's better than the
rather clunky Proquest interface.
Let me know what you'd like to do here . . . and hopefully I haven't
volunteered to get 1,000 stock prices and dates . . .
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
Clarification of Answer by
omnivorous-ga
on
26 Jul 2003 09:29 PDT
Davis_ee:
If you'd like me to look up a list of stock prices, please provide the
date or dates (September's a long month!) and both stock ticker and
company name. The typical stock tables abbreviate the name and don't
use the ticker, so I'll be pulling them from NYSE, AMEX, NASDAQ lists.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
|
Request for Answer Clarification by
davis_ee-ga
on
28 Jul 2003 23:56 PDT
Omnivorous,
Thanks for the offer, but I'm so busy right now that I can't figure
out the exact dates at the moment. I was sure hoping to find an
online resource so that I could just look them up in a couple of weeks
when I'm less busy. If I don't have a resource by then, maybe I'll
take you up on your offer.
Davis_ee
|
Clarification of Answer by
omnivorous-ga
on
29 Jul 2003 07:01 PDT
Davis_ee --
We'll be here (I hope) and if you post a clarification request, it
will e-mail me so that I know you've posted the request.
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA
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