NAME

Finance::QuoteHist - Perl module for fetching historical stock quotes.

SYNOPSIS

use Finance::QuoteHist;
$q = Finance::QuoteHist->new
   (
    symbols    => [qw(IBM UPS AMZN)],
    start_date => '01/01/2009', # or '1 year ago', see Date::Manip
    end_date   => 'today',
   );

# Quotes
foreach $row ($q->quotes()) {
  ($symbol, $date, $open, $high, $low, $close, $volume) = @$row;
  ...
}

# Splits
foreach $row ($q->splits()) {
   ($symbol, $date, $post, $pre) = @$row;
}

# Dividends
foreach $row ($q->dividends()) {
   ($symbol, $date, $dividend) = @$row;
}

# Culprit
$fetch_class = $q->quote_source('IBM');

DESCRIPTION

Finance::QuoteHist is a top level interface for fetching historical stock quotes from the web.

It is actually a front end to modules based on Finance::QuoteHist::Generic, the main difference being that it has a default lineup of web sites from which to attempt quote retrieval. If the prospect of mixing data from multiple sites seems scary to you, then use one of the site-specific modules directly.

Unless otherwise defined via the lineup attribute, this module will select a lineup for you, the default being:

Finance::QutoeHist::Yahoo
Finance::QutoeHist::Google
Finance::QuoteHist::QuoteMedia
Finance::QutoeHist::MSN

Once instantiated, this module behaves identically to the first module in the lineup, sharing all of that module's methods.

Most queries will likely be handled by the first module in the lineup. If the site is down for some reason, or perhaps that site does not provide quotes for defunct ticker symbols, then the other sites in the lineup will be attempted.

See Finance::QuoteHist::Generic(3) for gory details on all of the parameters and methods this module accepts. The basic interface is noted below.

METHODS

The basic user interface consists of several methods, as seen in the example above. Those methods are:

quotes()

Returns a list of rows (or a reference to an array containing those rows, if in scalar context). Each row contains the Symbol, Date, Open, High, Low, Close, and Volume for that date. Optionally, if non-adjusted values were requested, their will be an extra element at the end of the row for the Adjusted closing price.

dividends()

Returns a list of rows (or a reference to an array containing those rows, if in scalar context). Each row contains the Date and amount of the Dividend, in that order.

splits()

Returns a list of rows (or a reference to an array containing those rows, if in scalar context). Each row contains the Date, Post split shares, and Pre split shares, in that order.

source($ticker, $target)

Each of these methods displays which site-specific class actually retrieved the information, if any, for a particular ticker symbol and target such as 'quote' (default), 'dividend', or 'split'.

DISCLAIMER

The data returned from these modules is in no way guaranteed, nor are the developers responsible in any way for how this data (or lack thereof) is used. The interface is based on URLs and page layouts that might change at any time. Even though these modules are designed to be adaptive under these circumstances, they will at some point probably be unable to retrieve data unless fixed or provided with new parameters. Furthermore, the data from these web sites is usually not even guaranteed by the web sites themselves, and oftentimes is acquired elsewhere. See the documentation for each site-specific module for more information regarding the disclaimer for that site.

AUTHOR

Matthew P. Sisk, <sisk@mojotoad.com>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2000-2011 Matthew P. Sisk. All rights reserved. All wrongs revenged. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

SEE ALSO

Finance::QuoteHist::Generic(3), Finance::QuoteHist::Yahoo(3), Finance::QuoteHist::QuoteMedia(3), perl(1).