How to insert Stock quotes from Web?

[Arizona]

HI Folks,

I need to insert a current stock price into a single cell of an Excel
worksheet. When I go to Data > Get External Data >Run Saved Query >MSN
Money Stock quotes, the whole web page gets inserted. There's another
way somone suggested using smart tags (I think it only works on
Windows), but with smart tags the stock ticker is inserted with the
price. I want to put the current stock price and only the current stock
price in a targeted cell. And I would like to be able to refresh with
current data easily. Is there a fairly easy way to do so? Could someone
tell me how step by step? Would much appreciate.

PS: I use a MAC at home with OS10.3.9, and EXCEL 2004. I have Windows
at work, but prefer to use my MAC at home for stock research.

Thanks,
~Arizona

 

[jpdphd]

AZ,

Target the Query results to a new worksheet.
On your "main" worksheet, in the cell where you want the stock price to
appear, type "=" and the appropriate cell reference to the query
worksheet.
Make sure the "External Data" toolbar is visible
Click "Refresh All".

Refreshingly,
jpdphd

 

[cwhaley]

I use the method suggested by jpdphd quite extensively. It seems like
overkill to bring in a whole page, just to reference one number, but it
works... except if your source requires a login like Yahoo! Finance.

Until about a year ago you could sign in on your browser, then execute
your web query from Excel just fine, but not anymore. I've been
pestering Yahoo about this over and over again, but they just say
"we're aware of the problem". That at least tells me that it's a Yahoo
problem, not an Excel problem.

I'm really hoping that we see some significant improvements in Web
Query in the next Mac release of Excel. It doesn't work half as well as
the Windows version. With Excel for Windows you can dynamically pick
off just a part of a web page (say a small table) instead of the whole
page. It still has to be a table though, not a single cell.

Also, in the Yahoo situation, you can actually login within the query
process, within Excel. Once you're in you can web query to your heart's
content. That's what we need for the Mac version, but they've already
had a couple of Mac generations of Excel where they could have added
that, but they haven't. Too bad.