Re: FinancialData Function Not Working for Property "Members"
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg116696] Re: FinancialData Function Not Working for Property "Members"
- From: DrMajorBob <btreat1 at austin.rr.com>
- Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2011 06:22:52 -0500 (EST)
Whenever I call FinancialData, I just cross my fingers and hope. Bobby On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 04:25:32 -0600, Gregory Lypny <gregory.lypny at videotron.ca> wrote: > Hi Syd, > > Well put. That was the point I was making less formally in the post > that started this thread when I wrote > > I'm concerned because I have notebooks that I share with students and > colleagues, and the analyses in > them can't be done if the ticker symbols are not picked up! > > There is an expectation of availability that arises from, as you say, an > implicit guarantee of functionality. As a practical matter, I must now > reduce the dependencies of my documents and demonstrations on the > availability of third-party data by hard-coding it into my documents. I > can create a notebook with prices of specified S&P companies, if they > are available, for a fixed range of dates, say, January, 2009 through > January, 2011, where otherwise I would have left the end date as today > so that the data is updated whenever the document is opened. The fixed > end date means that from time to time, I must review all of my > documents, making sure that new data is available, update manually if it > is, and then redistribute the documents, which is what I was doing in > the pre-computable-data days using my own data sources. > > Regards, > > Gregory > > > > On Mon, Feb 21, 2011, at 10:42 PM, Syd Geraghty wrote: > >> Gregory, >> >> To respond to your explanation: >> >> "But might it not have to do with Yahoo Finance not making the >> information available anymore as Min Hsuan Peng suggested?" >> >> That may perhaps be true and it is central to one of my main concerns >> about the direction that WRI are taking with "Computable Data", "free >> form input", and Wolfram Alpha (W|A). >> >> There is a tendency toward implicit guarantee of functionality away >> from "explicit best efforts guarantee of functionality" (which is >> generally well documented) in the newer product offerings such as W|A >> and newer features being implemented in Mathematica itself! >> >> If something as fundamental (and clearly documented with examples in >> the Documentation Center) as the elementary expression >> FinancialData["SP500", "Members"] is not within WRI's ability to >> support in perpetuity then extrapolating that scenario to other third >> party data dependencies potentially makes development of products based >> on the WRI ecosystem very problematic. >> >> I prefer to think this particular problem is just a data management bug >> and not systemic. Time will tell. >> >> I still have reservations about the use of free form inputs (which >> inherently cannot have a documented output) and W|A results where the >> implication is that results are "reliable" and will continue to be "in >> some sense" repeatable. >> >> I trust that we Mathematica and Wolfram | Alpha users are not on an >> experimental roller coaster which is being constructed in real time >> without a net. >> >> Cheers .... Syd >> >> Syd Geraghty B.Sc, M.Sc. >> >> sydgeraghty at mac.com >> >> Mathematica 8.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (November 6, 2010) >> MacOS X V 10.6.5 Snow Leopard >> MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM >> >> On Feb 21, 2011, at 5:12 PM, Gregory Lypny wrote: >> >>> Hi Syd, >>> >>> Thanks for responding. But might it not have to do with Yahoo Finance >>> not making the information available anymore as Min Hsuan Peng >>> suggested? >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Gregory >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011, at 7:30 PM, Syd Geraghty wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Greg, >>>> >>>> A quick check on my system reveals that your example and examples in >>>> the documentation show that a data feed has a bug. >>>> >>>> Your example: >>>> >>>> In[14]:= FinancialData["SP500", "Members"] >>>> >>>> Out[14]= Missing["NotAvailable"] >>>> >>>> And from the documentation for FinancialData[]: >>>> >>>> In[2]:= FinancialData["SP500"] >>>> >>>> Out[2]= 1343.01 >>>> >>>> which is OK but then >>>> >>>> In[3]:= Take[FinancialData["SP500", "Members"], 10] >>>> >>>> During evaluation of In[3]:= Take::take: Cannot take positions 1 >>>> through 10 in Missing[NotAvailable]. >> >>>> >>>> Out[3]= Take[Missing["NotAvailable"], 10] >>>> >>>> Suggest a bug report. >>>> >>>> Cheers .... Syd >>>> >>>> Syd Geraghty B.Sc, M.Sc. >>>> >>>> sydgeraghty at mac.com >>>> >>>> Mathematica 8.0 for Mac OS X x86 (64-bit) (November 6, 2010) >>>> MacOS X V 10.6.5 Snow Leopard >>>> MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM >>>> >>>> On Feb 19, 2011, at 2:15 AM, Gregory Lypny wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hello anyone who uses the FinancialData function, >>>>> >>>>> I used to be able to get the members of the S&P500 and the S&P100 >>>>> using >>>>> >>>>> FinancialData["SP500", "Members"] >>>>> >>>>> and then the ticker symbols to do analyses. But both yesterday and >>>>> today, the function returns, what appears to be a dash or hyphen (-). >>>>> This also happens for industry members such as FinancialData["Books", >>>>> "Members"] and FinancialData["Drugs", "Members"], where I used the >>>>> examples in the built-in Help system, but foreign exchanges like >>>>> Frankfurt work fine. >>>>> >>>>> Any thoughts on why this happens? I'm concerned because I have >>>>> notebooks that I share with students and colleagues, and the >>>>> analyses in >>>>> them can't be done if the ticker symbols are not picked up! >>>>> >>>>> Regards, >>>>> >>>>> Gregory >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >> > -- DrMajorBob at yahoo.com