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<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>beancounter - Stock portfolio performance monitor tool</TITLE>
<LINK REV="made" HREF="mailto:perl@packages.debian.org">
</HEAD>

<BODY>

<A NAME="__index__"></A>
<!-- INDEX BEGIN -->

<UL>

	<LI><A HREF="#name">NAME</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#synopsys">SYNOPSYS</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#commands">COMMANDS</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#options">OPTIONS</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#description">DESCRIPTION</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#examples">EXAMPLES</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#tutorial">TUTORIAL</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#more detailed command description">MORE DETAILED COMMAND DESCRIPTION</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#more detailed option description">MORE DETAILED OPTION DESCRIPTION</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#system overview">SYSTEM OVERVIEW</A></LI>
	<UL>

		<LI><A HREF="#database requirements">DATABASE REQUIREMENTS</A></LI>
		<LI><A HREF="#config file">CONFIG FILE</A></LI>
		<LI><A HREF="#odbc configuration">ODBC CONFIGURATION</A></LI>
	</UL>

	<LI><A HREF="#bugs">BUGS</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#see also">SEE ALSO</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#copyright">COPYRIGHT</A></LI>
	<LI><A HREF="#acknowledgements">ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</A></LI>
</UL>
<!-- INDEX END -->

<HR>
<P>
<H1><A NAME="name">NAME</A></H1>
<P>beancounter - Stock portfolio performance monitor tool</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="synopsys">SYNOPSYS</A></H1>
<P>beancounter [options] command [command_arguments ...]</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="commands">COMMANDS</A></H1>
<PRE>
 addindex index args       add stock(s) to market index 'indx'
 addportfolio sym:nb:fx:type:o:pp:pd ... 
                           add 'nb' stocks of company with symbol 'sym'
                           that are listed in currency 'fx' to the 
                           portfolio with optional 'type' and 'owner'
                           info, purchase price 'pp' and date 'pd'; 
                           see below for a complete example
 allreports                combines dayendreport, status and risk 
 addstock arg ...          add stock(s) with symbol arg to the database
 advanceement              report on unrealized gains from lows
 backpopulate  arg ...     fill with historic data for given stock(s)
 dailyjob                  combines update, dayendreport, status + risk 
 dayendreport              reports p/l changes relative to previous day
 delete arg ...            delete given stock(s) from database
 destroydb                 delete the BeanCounter database
 plreport                  run an portfolio p/l report rel. to any day
 quote arg ...             report current data for given stock(s)
 retracement               report unrealized losses from highs (drawdowns)
 risk                      display a portfolio risk report
 status                    status summary report for portfolio
 update                    update the database with day's data
 warranty                  display the short GNU GPL statement</PRE>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="options">OPTIONS</A></H1>
<PRE>
 --help                    show this help
 --verbose                 more verbose operation, debugging
 --date date               report for this date (today)
 --prevdate date           relative to this date (yesterday)
 --currency fx             set home currency
 --restriction sql         impose SQL restriction
 --extrafx fx1,fx2,...     additional currencies to load
 --forceupdate date        force db to store new price info with date
 --rcfile file             use different configuration file
 --[no]fxupdate            enforce/suppress FX update, default is update
 --dbsystem system         use db backend system, default is PostgreSQL
 --dbname name             use db name, default is beancounter</PRE>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="description">DESCRIPTION</A></H1>
<P><STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> gathers and analyses stock market data to evaluate
portfolio performance.  It has several modes of operation. The first
main mode is data gathering: both current data (e.g. end-of-day
closing prices) and historical price data (to back-populate the
database) can be retrieved both automatically and efficiently with
subsequent local storage in a relational database system (either
<EM>PostgreSQL</EM> or <EM>MySQL</EM> though any other system with an <EM>ODBC</EM>
driver could be used). The second main mode is data analysis where the
stored data is evaluated to provide performance information. Several
canned reports types are already available.</P>
<P>Data is retrieved very efficiently in a single batch query per Yahoo!
host from the Yahoo! Finance web sites. Support exists for North
America (i.e. US and Canada), Europe (i.e. the Continent as well as
Great Britain), several Asian stock markets, Australia and New
Zealand. New markets are easy to add by following the (fairly
extensively commented) Perl code. Patches are certainly welcome for
further markets especially in Asia and Latin America!</P>
<P><STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> can aggregate the change in value for the entire
portfolio over arbitrary time horizons (provided historical data has
either been gathered or has been backpopulated). Using the powerful
date-parsing routine available to Perl (thanks to the <EM>Date::Manip</EM>
modules), you can simply say 'from six months ago to today' (see below
for examples).</P>
<P><STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> has been written and tested under Linux. It should run
under any standard Unix as long as the required Perl modules are
installed, as as long as the database backend is found.</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="examples">EXAMPLES</A></H1>
<PRE>
 beancounter update --forceupdate today</PRE>
<PRE>
    This updates the database: it extends timeseries data (such as
    open, low, high, close, volume) with data for the current day,
    and overwrites static data (such as capital, price/earnings, ...) 
    with current data. All stocks held in the database are updated
    (unless the --restriction argument instructs otherwise). The 
    --forceupdate option lets the program corrects incorrect dates 
    returned from Yahoo! (which happens every now and so often), but
    be careful to correct for this on public holidays. Note that 
    the --restriction argument will be applied to the portfolio table,
    whereas the overall selection comes from the stockinfo table.</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter addportfolio SUNW:100:USD:joe:401k:85.50:19991117 \
                          IBM:100:USD:joe:401k:90.25:20000320  \
                          SPY:50:USD:joe:ira:142.25:20000620</PRE>
<PRE>
    This adds the two stocks Sun and IBM to the 401k portfolio of Joe,
    as well as SP500 'Spiders' to his IRA portfolio. The stocks are
    also added to the general stock info tables via an implicit call
    of the stockinfo command.</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter addstock LNUX RHAT COR.TO</PRE>
<PRE>
    This adds these three Linux companies to the database without adding
    them to any specific portfolios.</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter backpopulate --prevdate '1 year ago' \
                          --date 'friday 1 week ago' IBM SUNW HWP</PRE>
<PRE>
    This backpopulates the database with historic prices for three
    hardware companies. Note how the date specification is very general
    thanks to the underlying Date::Manip module.</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter plreport --prevdate '1 month ago' --date 'today' \
                        --restriction &quot;owner='joe'&quot;</PRE>
<PRE>
    This calculates portfolio profits or losses over the last year. It
    also imposes the database restriction that only stocks owned by
    'joe' are to be included.</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter status --restriction &quot;type='401k'&quot;</PRE>
<PRE>
    This shows a portfolio status report with the restriction that only
    stocks from the '401k' account are to be included.</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter risk --prevdate &quot;6 month ago&quot;</PRE>
<PRE>
    This shows a portfolio risk report. This tries describes the 
    statistically plausible loss which should be exceeded only 1 out
    of 100 times (see below for more details).</PRE>
<PRE>
 beancounter dailyjob --forceupdate today</PRE>
<PRE>
    Run a complete 'job': update the database, show a day-end profit/loss
    report, show a portfolio status report and show a riskreport. In the
    update mode, override a potentially wrong date supplied by Yahoo!
    with the current date.</PRE>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="tutorial">TUTORIAL</A></H1>
<P>The following few paragraphs will illustrate the use of
<STRONG>beancounter</STRONG>.  We will set up two fictional accounts for two
brothers Bob and Bill (so that we can illustrate the 'owner' column).
The prices below are completely fictitious, as are the portfolios.</P>
<P>We suppose that <STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> is installed and that the
'setup_beancounter' command has been run. We can then create a
two-stock (computer hardware) portfolio for Bob as follows:</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter addportfolio SUNW:100:USD:bob:401k:85.50:19991117 \
                          IBM:100:USD:bob:401k:90.25:20000320</PRE>
<P>Here we specify that 100 shares each of Sun and IBM, priced in US
Dollars, are in Bob's portfolio which is tagged as a 401k retirement
account. The (fictitious) purchase price and date are also given.</P>
<P>Let's suppose that Bill prefers networking equipment, and that he has
a brokerage account in Canada:</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter addportfolio CSCO:100:USD:bill:spec:78.00:19990817 \
                          NT:200:CAD:bill:spec:cad:90.25:20000212</PRE>
<P>Now we can backpopulate the database from 1998 onwards for all four stocks:</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter backpopulate --prevdate 19980101 CSCO IBM NT SUNW</PRE>
<P>With this historical data in place, we now compare how Bob's portfolio
would have fared over the last 18 months:</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter plreport --prevdate '18 months ago' \
                        --restriction &quot;owner='bob'&quot;</PRE>
<P>Note how we use double quotes to protect the arguments, and how the
SQL restriction contains a further single quote around the literal
string.</P>
<P>We can also review the performance for Bill at the most recent trading
day:</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter dayendreport --restriction &quot;owner='bill'&quot;</PRE>
<P>or the status of holdings and their respective values:</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter dayendreport --restriction &quot;owner='bill'&quot;</PRE>
<P>Similarly, a risk reports can be run on this portfolios per</P>
<PRE>
 beancounter risk --restriction &quot;owner='bill'&quot;</PRE>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="more detailed command description">MORE DETAILED COMMAND DESCRIPTION</A></H1>
<P><STRONG>addportfolio</STRONG> is the most important 'position entry' command. As
with other commands, several arguments can be given at the same
time. For each of these, records are separated using a colon and
specify, in order, stock symbol, number of stocks held, currency,
account type, account owner, purchase price and purchase date.  Only
the first three arguments are required, the others are
optional. Executing <STRONG>addportfolio</STRONG> implicitly executes <STRONG>addstock</STRONG>. 
The account type column can be used to specify whether the account 
is, e.g., a tax-sheltered retirement account, or it could be used to
denote the brokerage company is it held at.</P>
<P><STRONG>plreport</STRONG> retrieves the most recent quotes(s). This is useful for
illiquid securities which might not have traded that day, or if a
public holiday occurred, or if there was a data error at Yahoo!. Two
dates can be specified which determine the period over which the
profit or loss is computed. This will fail if price data (or currency
data in the case of foreign stocks data) data is not available for
either of those two dates. This can be restrictive for foreign stocks
where we cannot backpopulate due to lack of public data source for
historical currency quotes.</P>
<P><STRONG>dayendreport</STRONG> is similar to <STRONG>plreport</STRONG> but is always over a one-day
period.  It also uses only one date record by calculating performance
given the 'previous close' data.</P>
<P><STRONG>status</STRONG> shows holdings amounts, total position values, annualized 
returns in percentages and holding periods in days. Note that the 
annualized returns can appear excessive if, e.g., a ten-day return 
from a recently purchased stock is extrapolated to an annual time 
period.</P>
<P><STRONG>risk</STRONG> shows a portfolio risk report which describes the
statistically plausible loss which should be exceeded only 1 out of
100 times.  In other words, the loss estimate has a critical level of
99%. This risk level is estimated via two methods. The first is
non-parametric and assumes no particular model or distribution; it
computes the 1% quintile of the return distribution and displays it as
well as the corresponding asset value at risk.  The second method uses
the standard Value-at-Risk (VaR) approach. This uses the 1% critical
value of the Normal distribution and implicitly assumes a normal
distribution for returns. See <CODE>http://www.gloriamundi.org</CODE> for more
introduction and references. If the distribution of normalitty was
perfectly true, both measures would coincide. A large difference
between the two estimates would indicate that the return distribution
might be rather non-normal.  Another view of the riskiness of a given
position is provided by the last column with the 'margVaR' heading. It
shows the marginal Value-at-Risk. Marginal VaR is commonly defined as
the risk contribution of the given position to the total portfolio,
and calculated as the difference in the VaR of the full portfolio and
the VaR of an otherwise identical portfolio with the given position
removed.  Note that calculating marginal VaR is fairly slow (on the
order of <CODE>O(n^3)</CODE> ].</P>
<P><STRONG>retracement</STRONG> shows a 'drawdown' report. Drawdown is commonly defined
as the percentage loss relative to the previous high. The default
period is used, but can be altered with the <STRONG>--date</STRONG> and
<STRONG>--prevdate</STRONG> options. The default period is also corrected for the
actual holding period. In other words, if a stock has been held for
two months, only those two months are used instead of the default of
six months -- but if the last months has been selected via
<STRONG>--prevdate</STRONG> then it is used.  For short positions, the analysis is
inverted and relative to the previous low. The report displays each
stock, the number of shares held, the current price and holdings
value. The next two columns show the maximum price attained in the
examined period, and the percent decline relative to it. The last
column shows the unrealized loss relative to the maximum price over
the period. The aggregate holdings value, percent decline and
unrealized loss are shown as well.</P>
<P><STRONG>advancement</STRONG> does the opposite of drawdown -- it computes unrealized
gains relative to the minimum price in the period. The discussion in
the preceding paragraph applies `but inverted'.</P>
<P><STRONG>addindex</STRONG> adds stocks a the index table. Currently, no further
analysis references this table.</P>
<P><STRONG>addstock</STRONG> adds stocks to the database. From then on data will be
retrieved for the given <CODE>symbol(s)</CODE> and stored in the database whenever 
the <STRONG>update</STRONG> command is executed.</P>
<P><STRONG>addpopulate</STRONG> fills the database with historic prices for the given
symbols and date period. Note that this works for stocks only, but not
for currencies due to the lack of a public source of historical FX
prices.</P>
<P><STRONG>quote</STRONG> simply shows a price quote  for the given symbol(s).</P>
<P><STRONG>update</STRONG> updates the database with quotes for all stocks for the 
given day. No output is generated making the command suitable for 
<STRONG>cron</STRONG> execution.</P>
<P><STRONG>dailyjob</STRONG> is a simple convenience wrapper around <STRONG>update</STRONG>,
<STRONG>dayendreport</STRONG>, <STRONG>status</STRONG> and <STRONG>risk</STRONG>,</P>
<P><STRONG>allreports</STRONG> is a another covenience wrapper around <STRONG>dayendreport</STRONG>, 
<STRONG>status</STRONG> and <STRONG>risk</STRONG>.</P>
<P><STRONG>delete</STRONG> removes the given symbols from the database.</P>
<P><STRONG>destroydb</STRONG> deletes the BeanCounter database.</P>
<P><STRONG>warranty</STRONG> display a short GNU General Public License statement.</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="more detailed option description">MORE DETAILED OPTION DESCRIPTION</A></H1>
<P><STRONG>--currency</STRONG> can be used to select a different <EM>home</EM> currency. 
Instead of having all values converted to the default currency, the
selected currency is used.</P>
<P><STRONG>--date</STRONG> allows to choose a different reference date. This is then be
be used by commands working on a date, or date period, such as
<STRONG>plreport</STRONG>, <STRONG>dayendreport</STRONG>, <STRONG>backpopulate</STRONG> or
<STRONG>status</STRONG>. <STRONG>--prevdate</STRONG> allows to choose a different start date for
return calculations, or data gathering.</P>
<P><STRONG>--restriction</STRONG> can be used to restrict the database selection. The
argument must be a valid part of valid SQL statement in the sense that
existing columns and operators have to be employed. The argument to
this option will be completed with a leading <EM>and</EM>. The SQL
restriction will typcally be over elements of the <EM>portfolio</EM> table
which comprises the columns <EM>symbol</EM>, <EM>shares</EM>, <EM>currency</EM>,
<EM>type</EM>, <EM>owner</EM>, <EM>cost</EM> and <EM>date</EM>. A simple example would be
<EM>currency='CAD'</EM>. Note that this has to protected by double quotes
<EM>``I</EM> on the command-line.</P>
<P><STRONG>--extrafx</STRONG> allows to gather data on additional currency rates beyond
those automatically selected as shares are listed in them. A typical
example would be for a European investor wanting to convert from the
EUR in which the shares are listed into one of the member currencies
which <STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> would no longer retrieve as shares are no longer
listed in these.</P>
<P><STRONG>--forceupdate</STRONG> allows to overwrite an potentially wrong date in the
database update. Unfortunately, it appears that Yahoo!  occasionally
reports correct prices with an incorrect date such as the previous
day's. In such a case, this option, along with an argument such as
'today' can override the bad date datapoint and avoid a hole in the
database. The downside of this approach is that it would ``double'' the
previous data in the case of a public holiday, or even if it was run
the weekend. A somewhat smarter comparison to previously stored data
might prevent that, but would be more complex to implement.</P>
<P><STRONG>--rcfile</STRONG> allows to specify a resource file different from the
default <EM>~/.beancounterrc</EM>.</P>
<P><STRONG>--dbsystem</STRONG> allows to switch to a different database backend. The 
default is <STRONG>PostgreSQL</STRONG> but <STRONG>MySQL</STRONG> is also supported.</P>
<P><STRONG>--dbsystem</STRONG> allows to switch to an alternate database. The default
is 'beancounter'. This can be useful for testing new features.</P>
<P><STRONG>--fxupdate</STRONG> is a boolean switch to enforece updates of FX rates during
'update'. The default is 'true' but '--nofxupdate' can be used to suppress
the update of foreign exchange rates.</P>
<P>The <STRONG>--verbose</STRONG> and <STRONG>--debug</STRONG> switches can be used in debugging an
testing, and <STRONG>--help</STRONG> triggers the display of help message.</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="system overview">SYSTEM OVERVIEW</A></H1>
<P>The following section details some of the database and configuration
options.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="database requirements">DATABASE REQUIREMENTS</A></H2>
<P><STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> currently depends on either PostgreSQL or MySQL, or any
other database for which an ODBC driver is available (though the
required tables would have to created manually in the ODBC case). Yet
another DB backend could be added provided suitable Perl DBI drivers
are available. For PostgreSQL and MySQL, the <STRONG>setup_beancounter</STRONG>
script can create and initialize the database, form the required
tables and fills them with some example data. It is a starting point
for local modifications.</P>
<P>The connection to the database is made via a dedicated function in the
<STRONG>BeanCounter.pm</STRONG> module, changes would only have to be made there.
As of this writing the <STRONG>Perl DBI</STRONG> (the database-independent interface
for Perl) is used along the DBI drivers for PostgreSQL, MySQL and
ODBC. Ports for MySQL, Oracle, ... are encouraged.</P>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="config file">CONFIG FILE</A></H2>
<P>A configuration file <EM>~/.beancounterrc</EM> is read if found. It
currently supports the following options:</P>
<DL>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_currency_to_specify_into_which_home_currency_holdi"><EM>currency</EM> to specify into which home currency holdings and
profits/losses have to be converted</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_resides"><EM>host</EM> to specify the database server on which the
<STRONG>BeanCounter</STRONG> database resides (this is needed only for the alternate
connection via the DBI-Pg driver in case DBI-ODBC is not used)</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_user_to_specify_the_userid_for_the_database_connec"><EM>user</EM> to specify the userid for the database connection; if
needed. If not specified, the current user id is used.</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_password_to_specify_the_password_for_the_database_"><EM>password</EM> to specify the password for the database connection,
if needed.</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_dbsystem_to_select_a_database_backend%2C_e%2Eg%2E_"><EM>dbsystem</EM> to select a database backend, e.g. to switch from
PostgreSQL to MySQL</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_dbsystem_to_select_a_different_default_database_na"><EM>dbsystem</EM> to select a different default database name other
than the default of 'beancounter'</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_proxy_to_specify_the_address_of_a_firewall_proxy_s"><EM>proxy</EM> to specify the address of a firewall proxy server if
one is needed to connect to the Internet.</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_firewall_to_specify_a_firewallid%3Afirewallpasswd_"><EM>firewall</EM> to specify a firewallid:firewallpasswd combination,
if needed.</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_odbc_is_a_switch_to_turn_ODBC_connection_on_or_off"><EM>odbc</EM> is a switch to turn ODBC connection on or off</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
<DT><STRONG><A NAME="item_dsn_to_use_a_different_data_source_name_when_ODBC_"><EM>dsn</EM> to use a different data source name when ODBC is used</A></STRONG><BR>
<DD>
An example file <EM>example.beancounterrc</EM> should have come with the 
sources (or the Debian package); please consult this file for more
examples.
<P></P></DL>
<P>
<H2><A NAME="odbc configuration">ODBC CONFIGURATION</A></H2>
<P>There are now several ODBC systems available for Linux / Unix. The
following <EM>~/.odbc.ini</EM> work with the <STRONG>iODBC</STRONG> library and the
<STRONG>PostgreSQL</STRONG> ODBC driver on my Debian GNU/Linux system:</P>
<PRE>
   [ODBC Data Sources]
   beancounter = BeanCounter Database</PRE>
<PRE>
   [beancounter]
   Driver       = /usr/lib/libpsqlodbc.so
   Database     = beancounter
   Servername   = localhost</PRE>
<PRE>
   [ODBC]
   InstallDir = /usr/lib</PRE>
<P>Suggestions are welcome of how to set <STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> up with other
ODBC libraries.</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="bugs">BUGS</A></H1>
<P><STRONG>Finance::BeanCounter</STRONG> and <STRONG>beancounter</STRONG> are so fresh that there are
only missing features :) Seriously, check the TODO list. This code or
its predecessors have been used by the author since the end of 1998.</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="see also">SEE ALSO</A></H1>
<P><EM>Finance::BeanCounter.3pm</EM>, <EM>smtm.1</EM>, <EM>Finance::YahooQuote.3pm</EM>,
<EM>LWP.3pm</EM>, <EM>Date::Manip.3pm</EM>, <EM>Statistics::Descriptive.3pm</EM></P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="copyright">COPYRIGHT</A></H1>
<P>beancounter is (c) 2000, 2001, 2002 by Dirk Eddelbuettel &lt;<A HREF="mailto:edd@debian.org">edd@debian.org</A>&gt;</P>
<P>Updates to this program might appear at 
<EM><A HREF="http://eddelbuettel.com/dirk/code/beancounter.html">http://eddelbuettel.com/dirk/code/beancounter.html</A></EM>.</P>
<P>This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.  There is NO warranty whatsoever.</P>
<P>The information that you obtain with this program may be copyrighted
by Yahoo! Inc., and is governed by their usage license.  See
<EM><A HREF="http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/gen_disclaimer.html">http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/gen_disclaimer.html</A></EM> for more
information.</P>
<P>
<HR>
<H1><A NAME="acknowledgements">ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS</A></H1>
<P>The Finance::YahooQuote module by Dj Padzensky (on the web at
<EM><A HREF="http://www.padz.net/~djpadz/YahooQuote/">http://www.padz.net/~djpadz/YahooQuote/</A></EM>) served as the backbone for
data retrieval, and a guideline for the extension to the non-North
American quotes which was already very useful for the real-time ticker 
<EM><A HREF="http://eddelbuettel.com/dirk/code/smtm.html">http://eddelbuettel.com/dirk/code/smtm.html</A></EM>.</P>

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