Stock Explorer® is the ultimate one stop solution to organize and easily maintain financial data such as stock quotes, sales statistics and any other collections of ordered quantitative observations having the time series nature.

Stock Explorer® supports all major industry standards for data formats including read-write support for the latest versions of Equis MetaStock® files, CSV text worksheets, TC2000® and QuotesPlus® data warehouses as well as own native SQL drivers to Microsoft Access® and Microsoft SQL Server which enables easily create and maintain own data storages of almost unlimited capacity with one mouse click.

Free online historical quotes are supported by Yahoo® covering in total over 30 countries and 30 thousands symbols.

Persistent table linking with the powerful automatic update procedures enables for seamless synchronization from real time feeds as well as easy change of data provider on the fly.

Support of interactive data editing, cut and paste from windows clipboard allow manual input or repair of data.

Stock Explorer® offers unified and remarkably easy to use point-and-click interface to access completely different data sources thus isolating the user from all complexities of heterogeneous data access in mixed environments.

Adaptive windows and context menus make it easy to learn and use even for a novice while the underlying powerful industry standards such as native SQL engine, smart caches and optimized virtual lists ensure smooth operation on huge data stores including shared corporate warehouses.

The drastic difference of Stock Explorer® from other similar tools lies in its unique flexibility due to extensible architecture based on SQL standard and original data manager. In this way Stock Explorer® is not bound to certain data format (including, in fact, its own) but allows for the use of many formats simultaneously. In particular, it does not introduce any predefined bar standards as, for example, MetaStock® and allows you freely extend or narrow stored data fields as necessary. To observe this universality you can make easy experiment preparing with Stock Explorer® the sample database in *.mdb file and then easily discover well formatted tabular data in Microsoft Access.

Key features

• Easy point-and-click interface similar to Microsoft Outlook®

• Visual maintenance of multiple portfolios from one optimized desktop

• Free world wide historical and daily quotes in over 30 countries directly from Yahoo® Finance

• Uncompromised reliability of enterprise scale data warehousing with Microsoft SQL Server and IBM DB2®

• Native read-write support of the latest Metastock® format of high folder capacity

• Full access to world leading financial data suppliers such as TC2000® and QuotesPlus®

• Reading and writing comma separated text files (CSV)

• Powerful stock finder to quickly scan and absorb all quotes data on you hard drive

• Ever extending family of data drivers to support newly emerging formats

• Open standard for third party independent development of new drivers

• Easy migration of entire databases across formats

• Persistent data linking with full automated update

• Easy relinking option enables to switch provider on the fly or combine multiple providers

• Manual data repair facility, editing of individual values, new row and column insertion

• Interactive data paste and copying using Windows clipboard

• Open SQL compatible storage schema

• Reliable high speed access to external data sources using ODBC and DCOM

Feel world markets on your fingertips with Stock Explorer®!

System requirements

Minimal hardware

These are minimal system requirements for the software to run:

Intel Pentium® 133 MHz processor

10MB of free disk space (100MB recommended for databases)

64MB of RAM

Recommended hardware

Stock Explorer® is the powerful database tool capable of operating huge data storages. To work on big data sets it may need considerable system resources. If you plan to work with many thousands data series and experience full power of Stock Explorer®, we advise the following configuration:

Intel Pentium® 4 2GHz processor

10GB minimum of free disk space recommended for databases

512MB of RAM

Operating systems and software

Microsoft Windows™ 95 SP2, 98, 2000, XP or NT version 4.0 or later

Latest Windows control pack

Microsoft Data Access Components version 2.7 or above

http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm

Microsoft DAO 3.51

http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm

Windows Installer

http://download.microsoft.com/download/WindowsInstaller/Install/2.0/W9XMe/EN-US/InstMsiA.exe

http://download.microsoft.com/download/WindowsInstaller/Install/2.0/NT45/EN-US/InstMsiW.exe

To use powerful connectivity to historical financial warehouses you may wish to buy such ready third party databases as

TC2000

http://www.tc2000.com

Quotes Plus

http://www.industrymonitors.com/

Installation

To install Stock Explorer® update your OS as described above and run integrated installer “Setup.exe”. Follow instructions on screen.

Upon installation the “Stock Explorer” program group will be created under “Programs” group of your “Start” menu. Also Stock Explorer® shortcut will be placed on your desktop. Use either method to run application.

To remove product from your system run installer again and select “Remove” option on screen which appears.

Registration

Stock Explorer® is free software. You can use it as long as you wish as well as transfer to other people without any limitations. However most data drivers included into standard pack are shareware with 14 days trial period. If you use them longer than that period without registering properly, they will stop to load. Then you will simply not see full set of drivers on the left bar of application.

To use drivers you should register them properly. Registration process is straightforward and very flexible. If you work only with specific sort of data as say Metastock® files, you can only register this particular driver and not register others. If you later decide that you wish to use other data formats, you can register additional driver any time. In this way you can conserve costs and achieve maximum flexibility.

License manager

To register drivers use License manager software. It resides on the same program group as Stock Explorer® upon installation. In the main window of License manager you will see the list of all installed products.

Click the desired product in the list and then click “Request license key” button. After that License manager will collect the necessary information about your system and will display it in the following form for your review.

When you click “Save” button in this dialog the License manager will suggest you to save the information displayed in the form to a file. The file is the standard *.zip archive and you may inspect it to verify that no information which compromises your system security is stored there. Then you must send this file to our e-mail address: econex@comail.ru.

Then go to our server

and follow the link for secure online registration. As soon as we will be notified on successful registration we will send you unlock code based on your request. Upon receiving code go to License manager and enter the code against chosen product.

Note: Please be aware that each product is registered on a per-processor basis. If you upgrade your processor or motherboard, your license key will no longer work. In that case you should again generate the license request for each product as described above. Provided that you are registered user, no additional fee will be charged.

User interface

Main window elements

The general design of the application is closely related to the interface concepts implemented in such widely used products as Microsoft Windows® Explorer and Microsoft Outlook®. In this way many users familiar with these widely used products can quickly start working with the Stock Explorer using their present skills.

Several windows ensure easy navigation and fast review of data. Some list windows can be transformed to dropdown lists or temporally hidden to conserve screen space and enhance browsing speed. Typical view of Stock Explorer® window is shown below:

The main window of the application is split into several separate parts. Some of them are essential while other can be closed for convenience depending on particular purpose for which you use the software.

The left list shows all data drivers and servers installed on system. The tree next to it displays all databases present on active server. List at right top shows all data tables in the currently selected database. Table below displays the content of active table.

Server list

On the left of the main window you always can watch the list bar similar to Microsoft Outlook®. This window displays the financial database drivers and corresponding servers installed on your system. The list of drivers is constantly updated so that you can buy and install additional drivers to extend the range of available databases.

Available servers are split in several groups for convenience. Initially opens the main group named “Local”, which contains the servers located direct on your computer. Other tabs of the list display the families of the custom servers. For instance the tab “Remote” displays the remote financial data stores such as Yahoo Finance which you can use directly from Stock Explorer® in order to download real-time quotes and automatically synchronize them with your local databases.

To select the current server to work with just click on its symbol in a list. The system then tries to establish the connection to the server and if successful, displays the list of databases present on the server as well as other details in several sub windows to the right which we discuss below.

The connection to the server may take considerable time especially if the server is situated on a remote location or contains many databases. The progress window informs you throughout the whole process and informs of it current state.

The currently selected server is always indicated on the title of the main sub window to the left as the first element of title string appended with the currently selected database (if any).

Database window

Occupies all the remaining are of the main window right from the server list. It too is split in several areas. In a title on the top it displays a compound string merged from the current server name and current database name (if any) separated by hyphen. Below this title reside several sub windows described below.

Database list

The next window immediately right to server list and below the title of database sub window is the database list. It contains string “Data sources” in its title. It contains the names of all databases present on currently selected server. The list may be empty if current server contains no databases. When you change the current server the database list is automatically updated. When you open new databases or close the old ones the list immediately displays these changes.

You may prevent the database list from persistently staying on screen by clicking cross button in its title. Then the list will hide to spare screen space and the down arrow button will be formed of database window title to allow you to again display list by clicking on that button and choose database from it on the fly. To return to the persist state; you should click the pin button on top of that fly window.

List of tables (series)

Immediately to the right from server list and database list in a database window is the list of tables (financial symbols) present in the current database. In its first column it contains the name of the company which related to corresponding financial instrument or any other user readable information which uniquely describes it in the current database. This name must be unique within database.

Several other columns display other information such as short symbol names of corresponding stocks, number of fields in their data tables, characteristic time frame of observations present in table, the begin and end dates of the table data records and several others. These fields may be empty depending on the capabilities of specific server and the availability of data.

List of tables is always present on screen and cannot be hidden. It may be empty if no database is currently selected.

To quickly select the group of symbols from the list select the first symbol then press “Shift” key and holding it down scroll to the last desired symbol and click mouse on it. All the range will be selected.

Note: The table attributes given right after table names in the list above are just approximate indicators for your convenience. For performance reasons they are updated only when corresponding table is explicitly opened. When you first open they may all be empty. You should explicitly click corresponding line if you wish to observe up-to-date values. Furthermore, if you update tables in future, the figures in the list will again become outdated until you open table with new data ranges.

Data table

The data table window stays in the bottom right corner of the application view. It displays the available observations of the currently selected data table (symbol) in reverse chronological order. When you select the symbol from the symbol list above you may use this list for the quick preview of resent quotes.

However when you quickly browse the symbol table, the load of the information into the preview window from database may take considerable time and degrade your browsing speed. To avoid this you can toggle the preview window from screen by using command “Table” from menu “View”.

Common tasks

Here are described step by step instructions for performing common data management tasks available through the use of this software. Most commands have duplicate shortcuts on toolbar and are also available from floating context menus for higher convenience. You can also use the speed buttons to further improve speed.

Database management

Creating new database

[Ctrl+N]

1. Use command “New” from “File” menu.

2. Follow instructions in dialog which appears.

Database creation process is specific to each particular driver.

Opening database

[Ctrl+O]

Some file based drivers such as Metastock® or Microsoft Access allow direct mapping to file system resources. You then may choose which databases to have permanently on your Stock Explorer® desktop and which not – to keep better organized and lower system overhead.

In case of such drivers to browse and explicitly open desirable database not present on list do the following:

1. Use command “Open” in menu “File”.

2. Follow instructions in dialog which appears.

Database opening procedure is specific to each particular driver.

Closing database

[No speed button]

You may as well close file based data sources.

1. Use command “Close” in menu “File”.

2. The selected database will be closed and removed from list

Database opening procedure is specific to each particular driver.

Closed database is kept intact and can be reopened any time.

Deleting database

[No speed button]

Databases can occupy huge areas on your hard drive and also consume considerable system resources. It is good idea to periodically cleanup your system of unnecessary data. Stock Explorer® gives you easy opportunity to permanently delete databases.

1. Use command “Delete” from menu “File”.

2. Confirm deletion in message box which appears.

Attention! The database will be permanently destroyed and cannot be recovered in future. If you not sure about destroying data choose closing database instead.

Tables management

Creating new tables

[No speed button]

You can manually create any number of tables and fill them with data:

1. Use “Insert table” command form “Edit” menu (command is supported only for those write enabled drivers which support table creation).

2. Type in new table name in dialog which appears.

3. New table is created and shown on list in your current database.

Deleting tables

[No speed button]

1. Select the range of tables you wish to delete

2. Use command “Delete table” from menu “Edit”

Attention! The tables will be permanently destroyed and cannot be recovered in future.

Data movement and update

Selecting tables range

[Ctrl+A]

To select a range of tables:

1. Place the cursor onto the tables list.

2. Use mouse or scroll down with “Shift” button pressed to extend range. All selected tables got highlighted.

To quickly select all tables on list use “Select All” command from “Edit” menu.

Copying the symbol or range of symbols between databases

[Ctrl+C]

1. Go to the source database and select a symbol or range. Use “Select All” command to capture whole range at once.

2. Choose command “Copy” from “Edit” menu. All selected symbols will be then placed on clipboard.

3. Go to the target server and database.

4. Choose command “Paste” from “Edit” menu. All symbols from clipboard will be placed on new place. If some names will coincide the system will ask you if you desire to overwrite currently present symbol with the one from clipboard.

Note: When you copy a series from one database to another it is automatically marked as linked to the source series in the database from where it originated. It enables keep the series synchronized with its source on automatic update procedures in future. If you don’t desire such behavior and just wish to make standalone copy of data, you should manually remove such link by “Unlink” command.

Quick selection of the range of symbols based on clipboard

[No speed button]

In certain situations the clipboard may already contain the list of symbols placed there by some other software or selected previously from other database which you also desire to quickly select in a new opened database (i.e. to further copy to some new storage). In that case you can use the powerful command “Paste Select” from “Edit” menu. To use this command:

1. Go to third party application which provides list of symbols.

2. Select desirable symbols in that application.

3. Use application specific copy command to place your selection on clipboard.

4. Switch to Stock Explorer®

5. Use command “Paste select” from “Edit” menu to select symbols in active Stock Explorer® database which coincide with those placed on clipboard. (This option is only available if Stock Explorer® supports the clipboard format in which your third party application placed symbols on clipboard).

6. Make necessary operations with the selected range, such as copy, delete etc.

“Paste select” automatically compares the names of companies and a symbol present on clipboard and automatically selects them in the current database if any coincidence found. All found items are highlighted and can be then copied and pasted to different place as described above.

Linking tables

[Ctrl+L]

One of the most powerful features of Stock Explorer® is the ability to permanently link tables and databases for automatic synchronization in future. In this way you can build up elaborate data streams and data deployment strategies which best fit the needs of your data consumer applications and never worry about data being not up to date or properly synchronized. This feature also allows linking to any external data sources not present on your computer.

To link one group of tables to another do the following:

1. Select the group of tables which will serve as sources of data in update procedures.

2. Copy them to clipboard.

3. Select target database which you wish be updated from target.

4. Use command “Link” from menu “Edit”.

5. All tables in the target database which have the names coinciding with the names of tables of the source database placed on clipboard will be linked to them based on series name coincidence.

6. Linking of tables will be displayed as symbolic text in the “Link” column under tables detail view.

You can change table linking on the fly any time in future.

Unlinking previously linked tables

[No speed button]

You can break any time links established between tables:

1. Select the desired table range

2. Use “Unlink” command from “Edit” menu.

Updating linked tables

[Ctrl+U]

Updating linked data tables is incredibly simple:

1. Use “Update” command from “File” menu.

2. Wait until system finishes the update process.

System will automatically check valid links and discovers any differences between linked tables. If target tables appear contain outdated data compared to their targets, new observations are automatically moved to target.

For performance reasons system only compares the final observed days of two linked series and not performs literal point to point comparisons. So if new points appear on the beginning of source series they will be overlooked. In general it does not contradict the nature of the time series where new observations can appear on successive dates. If however you face situation where your data were updated in some nontrivial way which violated that rule, we advise perform raw rewriting of old data.

Working with datasheet

Stock Explorer® has powerful worksheet functions which allow preview and quick access of data contained in any data table. To edit data in worksheet cells double click on cell or just type digits.

Displaying table worksheet

[No speed button]

Worksheet is typically displayed in bottom right corner of user screen. You may hide it to extend tables view. To toggle worksheet use “Table” command from “View” menu.

Selecting range of values

[Ctrl+A]

To select a range of values:

1. Place the cursor onto the data worksheet.

2. Drag mouse holding left button down or scroll down with “Shift” button pressed to extend range. All selected cells got highlighted.

To quickly select all tables on list use “Select All” command from “Edit” menu. Note that same command applied to tables list performs tables selection.

Copying worksheet data

[Ctrl+C]

To copy table data to clipboard:

1. Select data in a table.

2. Use “Copy” command from “Edit” menu.

Pasting data to worksheet

[Ctrl+P]

You can place data directly into the data table from clipboard:

1. Select data in some third party application, as say MS Excel.

2. Copy them to clipboard by means of that application.

3. Activate Stock Explorer®.

4. Select target table.

5. Use “Paste” command from “Edit” menu.

6. Observe new data appear in a table.

This command incorporates many very powerful features and allows for insertion of large ranges of data. In that case the target table is automatically extended to hold the entire supplied data set. Then the complex analysis of the supplied data is performed to checkout the data validity, range of dates and other features. Then the data currently present in the table are replaced and appended as necessary including also autosorting of the entire table with the inclusion of all newly supplied data.

Such processing may look confusing and you may not readily find newly inserted data. However if you carefully browse the table you will discover them sorted to proper places and formatted.

Cutting data range

[Ctrl+X]

1. Select data range.

2. Use “Cut” command from “Edit” menu to cut range.

Inserting new row of data

[No speed button]

Click “Insert Row” command in “Edit” menu.

New row will be automatically assigned new successive date based on current time step of the time series. Or current date will be inserted if the series is empty.

Newly inserted row contains empty fields. You can type them manually.

Deleting row from table

[No speed button]

1. Navigate to corresponding row.

2. Click “Delete Row” command in “Edit” menu.

Inserting new column

[No speed button]

1. Click “Insert Column” command in “Edit” menu.

2. Type in new column name in a bow which appears.

New columns are always inserted last.

Deleting column

[No speed button]

1. Navigate to corresponding row.

2. Click “Delete Column” command in “Edit” menu.

You cannot delete the first column which contains dates

Components and architecture

Data manager

Stock Explorer® is highly modular open standard solution consisting of many simple and powerful unified building blocks. It follows extensible and well tested principles of ODBC architecture to simplify and adapt its usage in the analysis of time series and stock quotes warehousing. General structure of application is best described in simple diagram below:

Stock Explorer® data manager is a special service component which can maintain operation of several other unified modules – data drivers. Its structure closely follows those of ODBC driver manager.

However Stock Explorer® data manager does not directly use ODBC for operation. Instead it implements similar but completely original intermediate modular standard best fit for specific usage with time series in general and market data streams in particular. Individual data drivers all comply to this same interface standard.

Individual drivers are completely independent modules which execute in separate threads. In this way the system gains unique stability. Each data module implements the run-time error trapping on its own.

If some exception still leaks from data module, it is intercepted in data manager and the malfunctioning module will be reloaded to repair its address space while operation of all other modules will not be affected. This ensures high reliability of data during the long batch operations such as database reformatting or update.

Besides of the above, data manager maintains the special cache implemented as light weight Microsoft Access database which holds recently accessed data in raw format for fast GUI rendering which yields fast user response on vast datasets.

In addition this local cache keeps the copy of catalog information for all accessed databases excluding direct databases access overhead. Moreover, this schema enables to maintain versatile catalog functions even for those drivers which not support such functions directly.

Another very important role of data manager is data update and synchronization. It keeps track of all data links between tables present on different servers and ensures the proper update of data.

Data drivers

Equis Metastock®

The native Metastock driver gives you the universal connectivity to the numerous financial data sources in the widely accepted Equis® format. It supports the latest Equis® extensions of the format which allow to maintain huge databases of up to 2000 symbols per folder. Intraday sessions are fully supported.

To open new Metastock folder use command “Open” from menu “File”. Then navigate to correct folder. If chosen folder has no MetaStock files, the error message would appear. You can also create new empty Metastock database using command “New” and then navigating to empty folder.

To avoid manually opening multiple folders you can use such powerful feature as stock finder. Just select the whole drive and the program will automatically scan and open all MetaStock directories present on drive.

The driver also have built-in validation feature. In this way you can repair damaged files in manual or batch mode. To repair files just copy them to new place from within Stock Explorer® and then edit fields manually if necessary.

Metastock format is strongly oriented on standard bar representation of trade statistics. Thus certain restrictions apply in importing data and changing the table structure. You can only have “Close”, “High”, “Low”, “Open”, “Volume” and “Open Interest” columns in your file (note that additional “Time” column in intraday files is explicitly merged with date field on display). Any attempt to insert or import the data with another set of columns will be ignored for all columns which not coincide exactly with above set. “Open”, “Volume” and “Open Interest” columns however are optional and can be explicitly added or dropped any time.

Microsoft SQL Server

Highly optimized native Microsoft SQL Server® driver provides the fast and reliable access to enterprise scale data storages. It wraps the latest Microsoft SQL Server® 2000 APIs and implements bulk column wise binding, smart indexing and a number of other original techniques ensuring instant access to huge sets of data series.

In contrast to other applications of this kind which typically introduce complex and closed data storage standards, all data in Stock Explorer® are stored in open, explicitly portable format which enables easy access to the stored data from any SQL compatible interface.

When first starting Stock Explorer® scans all instances of SQL servers running on LAN and offers the standard login screen.

You should choose the desired server from list and also provide correct User ID and Password. This information will be stored for automated login in future. Consult your system administrator for other login options.

After successful login you will see the full list of databases present on chosen server. You can create new databases and delete existing databases right from Stock Explorer® GUI.

Current version Stock Explorer® of supports the connection to only one server at a time.

IBM DB2® Universal Database

This driver provides the fast native access to DB2. You will avoid all the complexities of DB2 management. Driver enables to create, maintain and delete databases directly from Stock Explorer®.

When you start the driver, it automatically finds all DB2 databases registered on your system. If you for the first time open database, requests your login and password. After successful login the information is stored in the registry for future autoretrieval. You can logon both local and remote databases registered on your system.

Note: Stock Explorer® was never developed with strong security in mind. Thus the password is stored in registry as plain text. You may think of some other software if the security issues are your primary concern.

DB2 version 7.2 or above is necessary for the driver to operate correctly. If suitable version of DB2 is not installed, the driver load will fail and it will not appear on the driver list in the left pane of the main window.

Microsoft Access®

This is very fast driver which works with *.mdb files through Microsoft DAO Engine. To open database just browse to correct file. Each series is represented as a separate table in database with name exactly the same as of the original time series. You can easily inspect data direct from Microsoft Access®.

No practical limit for the number of series per is established. Note however the 2GB per file present in DAO. Restrict the maximum number of series per database to avoid failures.

Comma separated files

Comma separated files are commonly accepted as the data exchange format. For instance, Microsoft Excel is typically used to prepare and read such files.

The Stock Explorer® CSV driver gives you the easy way to use such data not just as standalone files, but as the full featured database. It considers all the files in each folder as a separate database.

To open new CSV files folder use command “Open” from menu “File”. Then navigate to correct folder. If chosen folder has no CSV files, the error message would appear. You can also create new empty CSV folder using command “New” and then navigating to empty folder. If however, you will not create any files in that folder before leaving it, the folder will not appear on the database list the next time you start application.

To avoid manually opening multiple folders you can use such powerful feature as stock finder. Just select the whole drive and the program will automatically scan and open all CSV directories present on drive.

QuotesPlus® data adapter

QP2 High Growth Stock warehouse (http://www.industrymonitors.com/) is the excellent source of historical quotes with daily automated update from internet. To use QP2 quotes you must buy corresponding product or order free trial CD.

You can use QP2 together with Stock Explorer® through the native QP2 API based on COM. In this way you can create your own warehouses in other formats using QP2 data and daily update them through usual table linking.

QP2 driver for Stock Explorer® is configured read only. You cannot modify viewed data.

TC2000® driver

TeleChart is another popular format of financial data (http://www.tc2000.com) and fully supported in Stock Explorer®. To use TC2000 quotes you must buy corresponding product or order free trial CD.

You can use TC2000 together with Stock Explorer® through the native fast TC2000 API based on COM.

TC2000 driver for Stock Explorer® is configured read only. You cannot modify viewed data.

Generic ODBC Driver

Provides most universal way to access data in any source which supports ODBC. It just requires that data strongly conform to the extended SQL-92 grammar.

To use your data with this driver you should first create correct ODBC alias from Windows ODBC manager. Refer to Microsoft ODBC help file and to the reference for each specific ODBC provider for further instructions on how to do it. When ODBC alias is successfully created and tested use command “Open” to select correct alias in Stock Explorer®.

Note however that despite this standard conformance, the usage of this driver appears quite limited. Many drivers do not support SQL-92 or make some extensions and improvements.

For instance, such wide known drivers as Microsoft Access or SQL Server introduce own DATETIME field type instead of standard TIMESTAMP. Thus they don’t work correctly with generic ODBC driver. On the other hand, DB2 worked with it just fine. You should consult your own driver conformance in each particular case.

We advise to use specific drivers for each kind of database which is explicitly supported by Stock Explorer®. They are specifically adapted to each particular driver capabilities and, as a rule, give much more convenience and performance.

Yahoo® online historical quotes

This driver provides free historical quotes from http://finance.yahoo.com/. It includes in total over 20000 stocks from all major USA and Canada exchanges. New quotes are available through the standard update mechanism with only 20 minute delay.

In contrast to many other tools which use Yahoo historicals, Stock Explorer® provides full and easy to use catalog of all stocks present on server. This enables to operate not on few selected symbols but on the large groups of stocks or even monitor the whole Yahoo universe. Catalog info is automatically updated monthly direct from Yahoo server to monitor appearance of new stocks as well as withdrawal of outdated symbols.

To make advantage of Yahoo historicals you need connection to internet. Stock Explorer® fully relies on your current internet settings. It means that it not includes any dialing or proxy mechanism of its own. But if your internet settings use dialing or proxy, then it will use them just fine.

Catalog information is cached locally for later use and thus is available even in off-line mode. Driver also makes local cache for all downloaded data in “EEYahooCache.mdb” file under “Data” subfolder of Stock Explorer® folder. This file may grow very big with time (up to hundreds megabytes) so make sure to reserve enough space on your drive.

Downloaded data can be viewed off-line any time. It also decreases network traffic and allows to incrementally update database after first download with relatively few new values for each symbol. If you work off line and no data for symbol still were cached, then you will see no data on screen as well.

Note however that very first opening of each symbol retrieves all historical data present on Yahoo® for that symbol. If you decide to work at once with large group of symbols, it can easily overwhelm Yahoo® server and no data will be obtained at all. So make initial symbol retrieval in relatively small groups.

Data limits for each symbol reflect the approximate expected range of symbol historicals available on Yahoo® rather then locally cached range. In this way the latest available date is always the current date even if your local cache does not contain data to that date. If you open symbol which is not up to date, Stock Explorer® tries to connect to Yahoo® and obtain missing data. Even if such connection is not successful, the last date is still kept as current date. This is necessary for correct work of update mechanism when you connect other databases to Yahoo® feeds as explained above.