Microsoft Money 2003 & 2005 Yahoo Finance Share Price Updaters

System Requirements:

• Microsoft Money 2003 or 2005
• Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Millennium
• Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 2008, 7

The Problem:

Microsoft.

More Info

Yep, no one really knows why, but as I’m sure you already know, Microsoft decided to pull the plug on anyone who uses MS Money’s internet update features.

Us poor beleaguered Money users must either migrate to something else in a market where there isn’t really a lot of choice anyway – and where nothing comes close to the product we’re leaving (personal opinion: I don’t really want to hear if you think otherwise).

I’ve created a Macro applet that will use data available on Yahoo Fiance as a bit of a mash-up to manually update the Money investing database.

Know three things before you read on:

1. I only have Money 2003 and 2005, so this has only be written for Money 2003 and 2005
2. It isn’t user friendly
3. It isn’t pretty

C:Amie’s Money Updater Script

At this point there is only one thing that you need to do

BACKUP YOUR MONEY FILE

If you haven’t done that, if you didn’t read that, don’t whine at me because everything went wrong.

Having done that download the script version for your Money version

Update: As of 2017 Yahoo have deprecated their public API for this and I was unable to identify a free substitute at this time.

Download: C:Amie’s Yahoo Finance Update for Money 2003 version 1.1.1
Download: C:Amie’s Yahoo Finance Update for Money 2005 version 1.1.0

What is it?

In a nutshell it is a GUI Macro Script that will fetch data from Yahoo Finance UK and automate the process of inserting this data into Money using the Manual Share Price Update process.

It works for both Shares and Indexes.

Configuring the Script

Yes you have to configure it; there is no GUI.

1. Extract the two files into a folder
2. Open LoadShareData.vbs in Notepad or a Text Editor
3. Find the section towards the top with the following two variables in it

4. Open Money
5. Look at the Money title bar and note the name of the Window:
   
6. Set the value of strMoneyFile to equal the value in the Window Title as shown above. In most cases the default will probably suffice. Ensure that what you write IS enclosed in quotation marks.
7. Go back to Money and into the Investments section. Count how many shares and indexes you want to have the program update.
8. If you have 4 shares / indexes to update set the value of iNumShares to 4, if you had n shares, set the value of iNumShares to n.

Adding Shares

This is the complicated bit. You need to give the program three pieces of information

1. The share symbol as it appears on Yahoo Finance
2. The position of the Share in the Manually Update Share Price drop down list – using a Zero based index
3. A value of 1 if the the share returns in £ Pounds or a value of 100 if it returns in Pence – You will have to do this through trial and error as Yahoo seems to return indexes in £ Pounds and shares in Pence, but by no means exclusively.

Let me repeat that first one again

The share symbol as it appears on Yahoo Finance UK

Got that? On Yahoo Finance UK, not as is appears currently in Money and not as you would like it to be in your head.

For example, Microsoft Money calls Lloyds Banking Group LLOY, Yahoo Finance UK calls it LLOY.L as highlighted below

If you scroll down the LoadShareData.vbs file you will come to a sequence of these that I have pre-entered

^FTSE is the FTSE 100, ^DJI is the Down Jones and ^IXIC is the Nasdaq Composite, by default these are setup in Money 2003 and 2005.

Just be wary that their INDEX positions will differ and you WILL need to change their index values if you want to use them.

So let us continue to pretend that we are adding LLoyds Banking Group

The add share function takes 3 parameters, the share symbol (wrapped in “”), the index and a divisor value for whether it is represented by (£ or pence)

The second parameter is the tricky one. We need to know what position the share is found in in the Manually Update Share Price dialogue in Money.

1. Open Money
2. Go into Portfolio
3. On the left hand menu choose “Update Prices”
4. From the pull-out select “Update Prices Manually…”
5. Locate the index position of your share or index, remembering to use a Zero Based Index. Use the image below as a guide
   
   Note: Lloyds is the 6th item in the list but it is in Position 5
6. Set column 1’s value to the Zero Based Index of the position in your drop list (5 in the example above)

7. This particular share returns in £ Pounds, so we do not need a divisor value for it so set column 2 to value 1. If it returned a value from Yahoo in pence instead of pounds you would enter 100 here as show below

8. If you have done all of the above correctly, you are ready to run an update

What happens if…

Q: …I get the Share Symbol Wrong?
A: If you give it nonsense, nothing will happen, if you give it a real share symbol by mistake it will update the price but for the wrong share. Delete the incorrect value manually.

Q: …I get the Index Position wrong?
A: The program will update the share price in that index. Fix this manually by deleting the incorrect update.

Q: …I get the Divisor wrong?
A: The program will update the share price in that index but will either have a vastly over-inflated or under-infalted value. don’t panic, fix the divisor and re-run the update within the same 24 hour period to overwrite the incorrect value.

Running the Program

In order for the program to work Money has to be running and already logged-in.

I strongly recommend that you go to the Home Page in Money and leave it alone.

DO NOT minimise the Money window, this upsets the program

Run the “Update Money.cmd” file that you extracted from the download, this will remind you of the instructions and give you an opportunity un-minimise Money.

When you “Press Any Key To Continue” remove your hand from the Mouse and your hand from the Keyboard. The computer will navigate around the Money interface on its own. You can safely watch what it is doing but if you try and use your machine while it runs odd things will happen. Do not try and read your email while it updates. Just let it run.

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