How do I find specific historic stock data?

January 9, 2007 3:24 PM

Is there any easy way to find historic stock data for a ticker symbol? I'm wondering if you could easily and cheaply pull up the day's price on say, MSFT, on July 17, 1995. And maybe three years to the day after that. I usually only see a range or a trendline with historic stock data, but someone must track all of them individually over time like this. Are there services for this? I would even pay for it.
posted by mathowie to Work & Money (11 answers total)

Yahoo provides it (historical prices link when viewing a stock.)
posted by sanko at 3:27 PM on January 9, 2007

MSFT opened at 107.75 and closed at 109.00 on July 17, 1995. This is from Yahoo Finance, which goes back to 1986. Link here.
posted by matthewr at 3:28 PM on January 9, 2007

Yahoo Finance keeps historical prices; query for the stock ticker and then click Historical Prices and select your date range. I think you can call it by the URL like this.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 3:28 PM on January 9, 2007

Bigcharts does it too: Link
posted by toxic at 3:29 PM on January 9, 2007

Response by poster: Awesome! Thanks all.
posted by mathowie at 3:30 PM on January 9, 2007

Just enter MSFT into the 'Get Quotes' box on Yahoo! Finance (finance.yahoo.com), then click Historical Prices on the left hand side. You can then view and download prices going back to 1986. I assume this is when MSFT was listed? Presumably it goes back yet further.
posted by matthewr at 3:30 PM on January 9, 2007

Wow. Three responses before I could even mention Yahoo Finance. Before this thread dies, I'd like to piggyback and ask a question.

What other sites do you use for historical data on stocks and indices? What about P/B ratios, dividend yields, and P/E ratios?

Does anyone have any favorite websites or databases? Perhaps something along the Fama/French info?
posted by sleepyflywheel at 3:32 PM on January 9, 2007

If you have an account with an online broker they will usually have this information too.
posted by yohko at 6:09 PM on January 9, 2007

"...an online broker they will usually have this information..."

Also, if you're going to make a trading decision (or pretty much any decision involving money) make it using data from a paid service such as your brokers.

I've found issues with Yahoo! data in the past.
posted by Mutant at 11:50 PM on January 9, 2007

hmmm... I've look at Projects, but found no plans for the time machine mathowie invented to make optimal use of this data. Anybody have a link?
posted by DreamerFi at 12:52 AM on January 10, 2007

Take a look at (my employer) the Center for Research in Security Prices in the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

For historical market data in particular, the US Stock Database has prices stretching back to 1925 for NYSE, 1962 for AMEX, and 1972 for NASDAQ. The utilities allow you to do just the type of query you mentioned in your post. Additionally, the command line tools have recently been brought together in a Windows application that will go out with our February shipment to subscribers.

It does cost, but the data is the most comprehensive available. It's a standard source for academic research and for developing investment models in the financial world.
posted by Fred Mars at 5:35 AM on January 10, 2007