If I run the Stock Screener under Tools, I can download to Excel in two ways. I can either click on the "Download Excel Report" button, or I can right-click in the table and select "Export to Microsoft Excel" from the popup menu. In either case, Excel opens with the data in a blank sheet in a new workbook. So download from stockcentral to Excel is working fine for Screener results.

When I go to the data page for a stock such as AAPL, however, I can't seem to download. There is a link at the top for "Get SSG Data", but no "Export to Excel" link. If I right-click and select "Export to Microsoft Excel" from the popup, Excel reports "This Web query returned no data." If I try to start from within Excel by constructing a query, I get a few lines from the page, but not the AAPL financial data.

If I were unable to download the Screener results, I'd suspect a problem with my desktop computing environment (Excel 2007, IE 7.0, XP Pro, Norton Internet Security). But the download works just fine for the Screener. So I don't know what the problem is with the stock data. Perhaps Excel download is blocked on purpose, say because of contractual agreements with Hemscott?  Or am I just doing something wrong? Thanks.

Mike Carroll

Joe,

Well, those are useful as workarounds. But that doesn't answer my question. I can download data from Yahoo Finance to Excel, and I can download StockCentral Screener results to Excel. The data page for the individual stocks presents the data in "a useful format". Why can't I download that into Excel? Is IClubCentral worried that folks will stop buying the Toolkit, if they discover they can use Excel instead?

Do you really think it's a better solution to put the data in the Toolkit database first, and then use Excel to extract data from the Toolkit database? If so, why?

Mike

Mike,

These certainly are NOT workarounds.  This is by design.  And it is certainly not out of fear.  ICLUBcentral and its predecessors have been in the "SSG Software" business for quite a number of years and the SSG file has been the preferred method of distributing data.  Primarily, this data has been used as input to Investor's Toolkit, Classic, and Stock Analyst.  As Ellis out, the data is "intended" to be used with the particular form of stock analysis designed by George Nicholson and others and promoted by NAIC/BetterInvesting.

I'm guessing that you'd prefer to see the table of data presented on the Data page in Excel.  We haven't supported that direct option as yet, but we'll certainly consider doing something like that.  In fact, we use suggestions from our subscribers as a great source of ways to improve StockCentral.

In the meantime, there is a very easy way to get what you want:  simply cut and page the page into Excel.  Just highlight the table with your mouse, hit CTRL-C, and then open Excel and hit CTRL-V.  (This IS a workaround, in the sense that it lets you accomplish what you want to do.)

If you're interested in doing an SSG style analysis, that's why you would use Toolkit.  And, it's entirely possible to do that inside of Excel.  As Ellis noted, his first product, back in the early 90's was an Excel spreadsheet that "did" an SSG.  It was only later that the SSG data file was standardized and several different software packages continue to use it today.

Besides Toolkit, there is Classic, Stock Analyst, Churr's software, the Intuitec software and, possible, others.

In any event, have a Happy New Year!