Metastock End of Day Data for Free

This is an article for those people enjoying the power of Metastock, but wishing they didn’t have to pay a monthly subscription for data.  If you plan on doing system back testing say with Tradesim, you might want to use the Reuter’s subscription service to get your historical database started.  Possibly download 20 years of data for systems back testing.  But why pay 25$ a month for data once the historical stuff is built up when you can get the updates for free?  Sure you can get data from Yahoo, but you are limited to 200 tickers per download.  The question is just how do you get this free data across the whole exchange?  Wouldn’t it be nice to select all the NYSE at the end of the day and download them all at once?  That’s what I’m here to tell you about.

First make sure you have a working copy of Metastock with The DownLoader.   These directions were made using The DownLoader version 10.1.  Next make two folders on your local hard drive.  The first call EODData and the second Metastock Data.  I have these in my root directory.  Then go to eoddata.com and sign up for a free account, confirm the account through email, and sign in.  Pick the Download tab at the upper left of the page.  You can pick the exchange i.e. NYSE, or exchange group, i.e. U.S. equities or U.S. futures.  Click on Exchange then select American Stock Exchange from the drop down menu.  Next select Metastock ASCII (7 column) for the format and End of Day for the Period.  Put a check in the Download all symbols check box.  Next is selecting the date.  You are allowed to go back one month when using the free version of eoddata.com.  That means if you miss a day or even a week or two it’s no big deal.  Just go back and start your downloads at the missing days. 

 

Ok, hit download and wait a second or two for it to show up in your download folder.  Double click the file in the download folder to open the file in Notepad.  Save this file into the EODData folder you made earlier, then close the file.  If you are going to use more than one exchange, for example I use American, New York, Nasdaq, and Indexes, setup appropriate folders in the EODData folder and save the files in the appropriate folder.  Do the same for the Metastock Data folder.

Mine looks like this:

   EODData

  AMEX

  INDEX

  NASDAQ

  NYSE

                               Metastock Data

                                           AMEX

  INDEX

  NASDAQ

  NYSE

You are now done with eoddata.com for now.  Open up The Downloader and pick Tools from the top left then select Convert.  A new “Convert Securities” box will open up.  In the Source section for file type select ASCII Text.  Skip the Folder box and browse for the file name.  Pick the file name you saved in the previous section and hit Open.  That should fill in the File name box.

Drop down to the destination section and make sure Metastock is selected for the File type.  If it isn’t, use the drop down box to select it.  Skip the Folder box and browse for the folder to save the converted data to.  Go to your Metastock Data folder and pick it.  If you are downloading by exchange, pick the appropriate folder inside Metastock Data, i.e. NYSE, etc.  Double check that your source folder is going into the proper destination folder and hit OK.  It will take a few seconds and then you are done.  Now convert any remaining files using the same procedure.  It seems complicated the first time, but it’s actually pretty easy and quick.  Now fire up your Metastock and look at your fresh new data in those charts that you just got for free!  If you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments section.