Importing Historical Data
The Import Window is accessible via the Data menu. Investor/RT supports importing of daily, weekly, monthly, or intra-day data.When importing historical data you must specify via the Import Format menu, how the data in the input file is arranged. When the desired format is not one of the formats available in the menu, go to File > Preferences > QuotePage > QuotePage Formats to create a format that lists the incoming data fields in order. The newly format name will then be available for selection in the Data > Import window.
Each line in the ASCII text file must have a date (or date/time). Dates may be specified in yymmdd format or mm/dd/yy format. When Importing tick data Investor/RT accepts a time indication following the date, e.g. mm/dd/yy hh:mm:ss, or mm/dd/yy hh:mm. Usually, each line in the input text file contains the ticker symbol. Historical data for several tickers may be imported from a single file. If there is no ticker symbol in the format you use to import the data, Investor/RT will assume all data is for one ticker and will prompt the user to specify the symbol.
Daily historical import is not only supported via ASCII text files, but from several other more specialized sources. These choices appear in the File Type menu when Daily Historical Data is specified as the Import Type.
File Type:
The 3 MetaStock entries under File Type are used to import data and/or ticker symbols stored in MetaStock format. These options will be useful to users of the MetaStock program who wish to bring data easily into Investor/RT, or to any user who has access to data stored in MetaStock format, e.g. data stored on CD ROM.
To Import Current Quotes
The Current Quotes Import, when used with ASCII text files allows for importing current prices and other properties for existing instruments. By specifying the input format name (see File > Preferences > QuotePage > QuotePage Formats) the user controls how the input ASCII file is interpreted. Here are just a few examples of fields you can import:
- Ticker Symbol
- Date/Time (when importing price values)
- Security Name
- Open, High, Low, Last, Previous Close, Volume, Open Interest
- Alias Ticker (for DTN MA downloading)
- User Custom (arbitrary user string data)
- Expiration Date (mm/dd/yy format)
- Strike Price
The data in the input file must have each field separated by commas or tab characters.
If you have a historical or current quote data file and you need assistance setting up the format to bring the data into Investor/RT open a support ticket and include a few sample lines from the file you wish to import. We will assist you with setting up the import format (quotepage format). Note that after you have imported current quotes and other market data the same format name may be used by any quotepage to see just those data columns imported; just switch the format of the quotepage t o the format name you used to perform the import.