More on historic stock quotes

[Warren Netz <netzw@pls.lib.ca.us>]

Recently I was excited to discover and share with you two sites
for free historic stock quotes (Caught In The Web 9/29/98).
There is something more you need to know about these services,
and about a third site that has been brought to my attention in
the meantime.

The two free quote services are IQC (www.iqc.com/quote/history.asp)
and Stocktools (www.stocktools.com).

If we look up, for example, the closing price for Microsoft on 10/1/97
using these two services, we get two different quotations:           
$133.88 from Stocktools, and $66.94 from ICQ.  How come?  

Well, IQC automatically adjusts its quotes to account for any stock
splits. Stocktools does not do this.                                      

The Stocktools figure is the one that would match a newspaper lookup
for that date.  The adjusted IQC figure is the one you would need to
calculate cost basis for tax purposes, and to correctly calculate price
appreciation or depreciation.  If the stock has not split, the two
figures will be the same.  It's a pity that neither service explains
which method they are using!

Ah, but here's a better way-- Bigcharts, another free historic quotes site
that provides BOTH adjusted and non-adjusted prices, back to 1985.
Thanks to Kim Mounger at Corvallis Public Library and Debi Westwood at
Seattle Public Library for cluing me in.  Following is a link direct to
the Bigcharts historic quotes input box, which bypasses a lot of junky ads  
and extraneous stuff:

             www.bigcharts.com/hquote/hquote.asp

Although this does not go nearly as far back as IQC (1968!), it is
very handy to have it both ways!

=============================================================================
Warren Netz, Reference Librarian             Phone (650) 697-7607
Reference Center                             Fax (650) 692-4747
San Mateo County Library                     
1 Library Ave                                email netzw@pls.lib.ca.us
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