Quicken 2001 QPH file format?

I upgraded from Q2001 to Q2002, then to Q2005; I have not found Q2005 to be nearly troublesome enough to revert to any previous version (I also tested Q2004).

As far as the price history is concerned, you may be thinking it is much more difficult than it is. While I do not think you are going to get a format for the qph file, I also don't think you need one. I also don't think you have to write any code to be able to *import* prices to Quicken.

All downloaded or imported prices are stored in the qph file; the prices of Quicken transactions like buys, sells, etc, are always stored separately, but they may also be stored in the qph file if no other price for that date is stored there.

Quicken has the ability to import prices from a properly formatted comma delimited file; such files are available for free download from sources such as Yahoo (setup a portfolio there, then download to "spreadsheet" from Yahoo's site). Any properly formatted .csv file can be imported into Quicken: just open the Portfolio View, click File > Import > Import Prices, and key in the name of the .csv file. That's all there is to it; those imported prices are stored in the .qph file, just as the prices you used to download using One Step Update are stored there. (And you can also manually update that qph file from within Quicken).

David,

The following format will enable you to import stock prices (Close, High, and Low) and Volumes (sometimes).

BMY,28.57,---,2/2/04,---,28.70,28.00,103851,* SYMBOL,Close,---,mm/dd/yy,---,High,Low,Volume/100,*

I assume you're probably using a US version of Quicken, but if you're using an Australian version (as I am) then change the date format in the above to dd/mm/yy.

You'll notice that I said volumes are sometimes imported. I've found from experience that Volumes greater than 20 million are ignored (ie, not imported). I posted a query regarding this just recently, but unfortunately haven't had any response.

However, this 'formula' is certainly a good start - it beats entering the three prices each day for each stock that you have, and is more complete than the Quicken 'recipe' which only allows the import of Closing prices. Although, of course, if you're not really interested in High and Low prices then the standard Quicken import is OK.

It's pretty easy to create a file with the correct layout by downloading the data from Yahoo in a .csv file, then "massaging" it with a simple macro in Excel.

Regards,

John

I am also a Q2001 user and like to have a daily price history of my securities. You can set up a portfolio at

andthen click on the "download spreadsheet" link to get a .csv file that canthen be imported into Quicken. I want a daily price history and don't want to do this every day, so I wrote a little python script that downloads the quotes for me from finance.yahoo.com and merges them into a cumulative .csv file with no manual input. I have it scheduled to run every evening, so it builds me a daily .csv quote file that I can import into Quicken whenever I get around to it.

This script is documented here if you want to play with it:

*quicken&rnum=2&hl=en#dba5f349742b0554 John