MSN Stock Quotes via Excel IQY Webquery Still Not Working

Prior thread:  https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/f21e02b7-04de-4143-a7ff-1ff09a1b923a/msn-moneycentral-iqy-connection-failure?forum=excel

The prior thread is marked "answered" but the problem is NOT FIXED.

Back on December 22, 2014, the MoneyCentral Portfolio Manager was removed by disabling the moneycentral.msn.com site.  This caused the Excel stock quote webquery using the MSN MoneyCentral Investor Stock Quotes.iqy file to stop working.

A fix was reported by George Zhao at Pactera Technologies a couple of days ago and marked as answer by Melon Chen (also Pactera Technologies) today.  THE PROBLEM IS NOT FIXED.

I am not sure anything is actually working today.  Some things were working yesterday, but today nothing is working.  Very very frustrating.

Yesterday, quotes could be obtained from the redirected site

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/quoteslookup?SYMBOL=["

provided you did NOT store the symbols in Excel cells.  Excel builds the SYMBOL parameter from multiple cells by separating the symbols with plus signs ("+") and not commas:

SYMBOL=MSFT+IBM+AAPL

It was also reported that the daily change percent was being handled as a number rather than a percent (multiplying the change by 100), that ETFs and mutual funds were not being handled, and that requests for currency rates and indices were not being handled.

If George Zhao or someone at Pactera Technologies could please let us know what is going on it would be much appreciated.


  • Edited by NFFATX Wednesday, January 07, 2015 11:04 PM
January 8th, 2015 2:02am

Yes , i also need an answer if this is going to work again or not. It would be polite if they let us know.

For the moment , sometimes you get data , sometimes not.

in earlier version , ik could get exchange rates like euro-dollar , by putting "EURUSD" in the parameter of the query, that doesn't work anymore.

It is a strange way of working

... Or are they hacked and don't want the world to know it ??????

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January 8th, 2015 10:41am

Hi Sir,

We have definitely heard your frustration, and I'm double confirmed/tested the MSN Stock Quotes if it is working now.

Based on my tested again this afternoon, MSN MoneyCentral Investor Major Indicies and MSN MoneyCentral Investor Stock Quotes iqy files are supported and working as they used to be. However, MSN MoneyCentral Investor Currency Rates has been deprecated.

We could use both of the two connection URL:

WEB
1
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/external/excel/quotes.asp?SYMBOL=["QUOTE","Enter stock, fund or other MSN MoneyCentral Investor symbols separated by commas."]

Selection=EntirePage
Formatting=All
PreFormattedTextToColumns=True
ConsecutiveDelimitersAsOne=True
SingleBlockTextImport=False
WEB
1
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/quoteslookup?SYMBOL=["QUOTE","Enter stock, fund or other MSN MoneyCentral Investor symbols separated by commas."]

Selection=EntirePage
Formatting=All
PreFormattedTextToColumns=True
ConsecutiveDelimitersAsOne=True
SingleBlockTextImport=False

Please see the below image:

Then, we also could access the URL with browser directly.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/quoteslookup?SYMBOL=MSFT,APPLE,GOOGLE,yahoo

Thus, I recommend we re-create the IQY file to test.

Hope it's helpful.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

January 8th, 2015 12:04pm

I have just tested a stock query from the UK and found that one stock quote worked, but a request for two stock quotes response was "No data available". So the service is still broken. I have used the IQY for years without any issues.

For a UK stock quote a prefix "GB:" is required. For Unilever the parameters GB:ULVR is used and works fine. But GB:ULVR and GB:VOD (Vodafone) as parameters fails.

So when will MS fix the problem?

Regards

BW

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January 8th, 2015 3:17pm

Hello,

The stock quotes work ,what about exchange rates ?

in the earlier versieon you could put "EURUSD" in the same qry to get the exchange rate for euros and dollars. this doesn't work anymore. Or do I need to put a prefix ?

January 8th, 2015 4:28pm

Hi George,

Thanks for your prompt reply.  It was very helpful.  Earlier today I was still experiencing some problems with the stock service, but now it seems to be working again.  Thanks to everyone who had a hand in restoring this service.

There is still one problem that I have noticed.  If I attempt to enter a range of cells for the parameter value as follows:

the webquery returns "Data not available".

I believe that this problem occurs because Excel separates the parameters with plus signs rather than commas.  Could you please also allow plus signs as separators for the SYMBOL parameter?

The following URL corresponds to what Excel generates

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/quoteslookup?SYMBOL=MSFT+APPLE+GOOGLE+yahoo

This is the URL I see with Wireshark for the HTTP GET.

With the change to make the plus sign an acceptable separator, I believe my problems will be resolved.

I was surprised to see that it was possible (as in your example) to enter company names (Apple, Google, Yahoo) rather than stock market symbols (MSFT) for the desired quotes.  Has the webquery allowed this in the past or is this new?  Is there anyplace to read about what is allowed?

Thanks again

PS What must I do or have done for me (verify my account) so that I can enter pics and links?



  • Edited by NFFATX Sunday, January 11, 2015 1:42 PM
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January 9th, 2015 1:39am

Hi NFFATX,

If you want to verify the account to add image/hyperlink, please see here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/15960.how-to-verify-your-msdntechnet-forums-account-so-that-you-can-post-images-and-links.aspx

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/d03e16a7-e911-463c-b86c-02c79a6398a2/verify-your-account-23?forum=reportabug

Or you could send the private information via Email (ibsofc@microsoft.com) 

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

January 9th, 2015 4:37am

george,

same problem here, iqy works for one single symbol but when linking to a range in excel with multiple symbols, you get a data not available error message

could you please fix this.....

regards

rijk

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January 9th, 2015 11:09am

Thanks George for the info about verifying my account.  I have submitted the request.  I did look, but not in the right place.
January 9th, 2015 5:35pm

Hi again George,

I am having another small problem.  It seems to be related to the general move of the stock quote service, but let me know if I should create a new thread.

When I try to get a NASDAQ quote for Vodafone (a company in the UK) using the symbols I expected might work, I always get a London quote.  I tried setting the stock symbol to VOD, NAS:VOD, US:VOD, NYS:VOD, NASDAQ:VOD and all these got me the London quote for Vodafone (about 225 pence).  What I am looking for is the NASDAQ quote for the Vodafone ADS which is priced at about 34 dollars.  When I use "Vodafone" as the symbol, I get the desired NASDAQ quote.  Is this what I should be doing?  Should any of the others also work?

Thanks,

Norman

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January 9th, 2015 10:09pm

that's the same with the currency exchange rates , before you could get the rate by simply adding EURUSD (euro-dollar) but this doesn't work anymore. I tried different symbols but nothing gives me the data.

the good news is that the qry gives the right data fot the stock quotes this morning.

Please help me :)

January 10th, 2015 12:37pm

Sorry , i was too optimistic ... it worked this morning ... :(

it is very strange , sometimes you get the quotes , 5 min later it goes wrong and you get only a part of the quotes ....

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January 10th, 2015 12:40pm

george,

the problem still continues....

iqy works for one single symbol but when linking to a range in excel with multiple symbols, you get a data not available error message

could you please fix this.....

regards

rijk

January 10th, 2015 12:53pm

it's driving me crazy Mr Zhao

You get some quotes sometimes, if you're lucky .... could you please give us an answer if

1. it is going to work again or not

2. and if it will be working again, in what time period can we expect it will be fixed .

this lasts for nearly 3 weeks now

Many thanks

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January 12th, 2015 1:16pm

george,

the problem still continues....

iqy works for one single symbol but when linking to a range in excel with multiple symbols, you get a data not available error message

could you please fix this.....

regards

rijk

January 13th, 2015 2:39pm

I look for the french quote for Renault S.A., the symbol is RNO. Without changing anything, sometimes I get the french quote for Renault, and sometimes I get the quote for Rhino Resource Partners LP from NYSE. For both the stock symbol is RNO. I have tried FR:RNO but it is not accepted.

If I put FR:RNO alone in the cell, it works.

The problem seems to be generated by the way excel read multiple symbol in a single cell.

  • Edited by Jacsal Tuesday, January 13, 2015 6:29 PM
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January 13th, 2015 9:24pm

Hi George,

Are you still monitoring this thread or is it time to create a new thread with the remaining problems?

Thanks,

Norman

January 13th, 2015 9:44pm

George,

As the problem continues I have created a work around based on only one quote being returned. Not great if you are loading more than 50 stocks. I have screen updating currently commented out, but goes faster with updating off (false). Im not a programmer so no techy questions.

Worksheet tab name = MSN
In row 1 insert
Col A header = Symbol
Col B header = Price
Col C header = MSN Code
         Note I use GB: + ISIN because other codes produce errors
Col D header = Name
         The stock name as IQY quote returns
Col E  to Q is a copy of the quote headers

Cell T1 is a copy MSN code used by the web query
Cell T2 is where run the from with fixed reference to T1

Macro code as follows. I use a 2 second delay because my internet connection is slow (really slow).

'--Create an active x button on sheet to run this macro

Private Sub cmbMSNRefresh_click()
'ScreenUpdating = False

'--Find the last row in col 'D'

Dim W As Worksheet: Set W = Sheets("MSN")

Dim Last As Integer: Last = W.Range("A100").End(xlUp).Row

'--Check if there are any quotes to find

If Last = 1 Then Exit Sub

Dim i As Integer

For i = 2 To Last

'-- copy MSN code to T1

    Range("C" & i).Select

    Selection.Copy

    Range("T1").Select

    Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteValues, Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks _

        :=False, Transpose:=False

       

 '-- refresh IQY

    Range("T2").Select

    Selection.QueryTable.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False

 '--set a delay of 2 second to allow get data from moneycentral

    Application.Wait (Now + TimeValue("0:00:2"))

 '-- Copy data from IQY to worksheet

    Sheets("MSN").Range("W5:AI5").Copy

    Sheets("MSN").Cells(i, 5).Select

    Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteValues, Operation:=xlNone, SkipBlanks _

        :=False, Transpose:=False

Next i

'ScreenUpdating = True

'--Fit data to columns

W.Cells.Columns.AutoFit

End Sub

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January 16th, 2015 5:01pm

Is this thread still active? Problems still persist with ADR tickers pulling foreign qoutes (e.g. GSK as an ADR on NYSE occasionally pulls GSK from the London exchange). In addition, percentages still pulling whole numbers, thereby multiplying the data by a factor of 100. Pretty ridiculous to have to manually adjust my spreadsheet to accomodate for this.
  • Edited by Ciege77 16 hours 11 minutes ago
February 1st, 2015 2:43pm

Is this thread still active? Problems still persist with ADR tickers pulling foreign qoutes (e.g. GSK as an ADR on NYSE occasionally pulls GSK from the London exchange). In addition, percentages still pulling whole numbers, thereby multiplying the data by a factor of 100. Pretty ridiculous to have to manually adjust my spreadsheet to accomodate for this.
  • Edited by Ciege77 Sunday, February 01, 2015 7:41 PM
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February 1st, 2015 10:41pm

I would like to have an answer too , but it is like no one is there anymore ....
February 2nd, 2015 3:21am

Issues are still occurring. One particularly annoying one is when MSN either doesn't recognize a symbol or else if there several possible different choices for a symbol (e.g. different countries/exchanges) intermittently it just quits right there and the list does not populate further. Or you get a "no data returned" error. It is not consistent. Never had this problem previously.

Temporarily I have switched over to Yahoo quotes, but that won't work on EXCEL 2003 or earlier which I need to also support.

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February 9th, 2015 5:19pm

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