Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,
Being a (NOT expert, there are way to many answers.
As far a sources are concerned, Yaho is the only place I know which provides "Bulk" quotes (historical data) for free. Unfortunatly, the only process I am able to accomplish via this is a manual selection. I'm sure it can be automated, but so far, this is acceptable for my dabbling. There are NUMEROUS sites which -for a SMALL fee- you can set up a bewildering variety of optional downloads. IF I were able to get my s........... together and be organized, MY preference would be to have whatever e-mailed on the regular basis (daily, hourly, weekly ... ). The message header would be a STANDARD address and / or subject and the data would be in an attachment. From that vantage point, I could do a bit of programming and place the attachment in a "standard" directory and depending on the formatting details, place the info in any db.
After that, as you note, the important part begins - knowing what the h............. all of it means.
I belong to an "Investment Club" where some of the members use software from "Investware" (Investors Tool Kit). We all got some manuals from the toolkit vendor, which describes ONE perspective, but their approach is to ignore fluctuations and depend on a 'value analysis', expecting that compainies which regularly earn money will also (regularly) increase in value. There must be n * 100 ".coms" with different approaches, and there are at least that many books on investment strategies - each with a "proven" approach and a track record which purports to have made some-one rich. My suspicion is that many of them got rich more from selling the stratgy than from exercising it, but then I am pretty cynical.
Oops - sorry my soapbox license just expired.
MichaelRed
m.red@att.net
There is never time to do it right but there is always time to do it over