historical price issues, splits
Ok, I'm looking at the data for ROST. I'm aware of stock splits on Jun 12, 2015, Dec 16, 2011, Dec 15, 2007, etc. Yahoo now seems to be properly adjusting the adj close price for splits and dividends, but Yahoo is also now adjusting all the other prices (open, high, low, and close) for these splits. Personally, I preferred how Yahoo used to show the data, using actual prices on the columns labeled "open", "high", "low", and "close", and only adjusting on the column labeled "adj close".
Some of us keep records of the price we paid for the stock, and having all of the data adjusted for splits makes our record-keeping more messy and complicated.
Of course, your asterisk on "close" says that this price is adjusted for splits, when actually all of the prices are adjusted for splits. (And unless you find a stock symbol for a recent IPO, you can't figure out what any of the asterisks on the headers mean because no one is going take the time to scroll to the bottom of a stock that's been around since 1985.)
Also, downloading data is so much more effort now than it used to be. I'm guessing this has been done to force people to wait for all of the advertising to load. I don't mind the wait as much as I mind all of buttons that have to be pressed to specify that I want the entire history, then hit the apply button, and finally to download. In the previous version, I just set an ancient date once, bookmarked the page, and only had to hit download from then on. (And anyone using functions that used to collect Yahoo data directly from Excel have had to either rewrite those functions or live without them.)
I'm looking at a zillion other Yahoo Finance pages with advertising, so couldn't the historical data page be returned to it's previous functionality? Please!
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RayO commented
Stock splits and dividends are already fully available on Yahoo Finance. Just select the Stock Splits option in the Show dropdown, Time Period to Max and you will be able to display/download this information. Same for dividends.
Your method of multiplying by the Adj Close and dividing by the Actual Close only works for a stock that has never paid a dividend like ALXN.
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koura a commented
This is part of ALXN's historical prices:
May 27, 2011 46.14 46.52 45.52 46.18 46.18 1,886,100
May 26, 2011 45.99 46.56 45.64 46.30 46.30 1,281,600
May 25, 2011 46.09 46.44 45.35 46.06 46.06 1,289,800
May 24, 2011 47.25 47.44 45.87 45.99 45.99 1,645,200
May 23, 2011 47.13 47.67 44.36 47.33 47.33 1,200,000
May 23, 2011 2/1 Stock Split
May 20, 2011 47.63 48.09 47.06 47.79 47.79 2,146,000
May 19, 2011 48.54 48.97 47.30 47.60 47.60 1,695,600
May 18, 2011 48.27 48.38 47.65 48.33 48.33 1,448,600
May 17, 2011 47.62 48.82 47.03 48.60 48.60 1,633,400
May 16, 2011 49.61 50.08 47.81 48.16 48.16 1,442,600I bought shares for $88.85 on 2/11/11. I used to be able to multiply by the adjusted closing price and divide by the actual closing price, so when I charted the data in Excel, my purchase would be located directly on the adjusted price line. Since ALXN split 2:1, and since Yahoo decided to adjust all of the open/close/high/low data for splits, now it sits at twice the price line, and unless I go through and find out ALL of the split info (date and split factor) on ALL of the stocks I track, my charts don't look right.
This is truly irritating. I really HATE how Yahoo has decided to change it's website. If you have to keep it this way, it would help if you'd create another web page with all of the historical info about splits. (And another web page with all of the historical info about dividends, too.)
I'm just a little peon investor. But being able to set up spreadsheets allows me to analyze the data and make better investing decisions than just buying index funds. If all of us peon investors give up on Yahoo due to all of these problems, how are you going to sell advertising?