Prices and market data

Your broker file tells MyTraderDash what you traded. Everything about the market itself comes from market data providers: outside services the app asks for prices and company information. You don't need an account with any of them, and you can't pick one: the app chooses.

What the app gets from market data

Exchange rates come from the Bank of Canada (and the US Federal Reserve before 2007); see Currencies.

The app uses several providers. When one has no answer for a ticker, it asks the next. Canadian listings (TSX, TSX Venture and other Canadian exchanges) go to providers that cover Canada.

How fresh prices are

Prices are not live tick-by-tick. They are refreshed in the background:

• About every 10 minutes, on weekdays that aren't US market holidays. This covers your open positions, your watchlists and the other tickers in use.
• When you look at a list. Opening a Ticker Report or a watchlist during market hours re-fetches any quote older than about 10 minutes.
• After every change to your trades (import, sync, a trade you add or edit), the app fetches the prices your open positions are missing.
• The Dashboard re-fetches stale quotes for your holdings when you open it and updates its cards when they arrive.

Even a freshly fetched quote can lag the market by a few minutes or more, depending on the provider. Use MyTraderDash to follow your portfolio, not to time an order: check your broker's quote before you trade.

There's no button to force a price refresh; the updates above happen by themselves.

Company facts are refreshed every few hours and dividend history about once a day.

Daily price history

For every ticker you've traded, the app keeps a closing price for each trading day from your first trade on (however far back), or the last 5 years if that's longer; tickers you only watch or screen keep 5 years. A ticker new to your account gets its history right after the import or the trade you add — splits and dividend dates included, and your positions are recalculated when they arrive. After that it is topped up once a week (and when you open a ticker's chart). If the provider has nothing before a date — the ticker wasn't listed yet, or it has been delisted — the app asks once and doesn't keep asking.

Market hours

The app follows regular trading hours: 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday to Friday, except market holidays (US holidays for US listings, Canadian holidays for Canadian ones). Outside those hours the current price is the last one of the latest session: after Friday's close, the price you see all weekend is Friday's.

Why a price can be missing

When there is no price, CURRENT is empty, RETURN $ shows - for an open position and its status is plain OPEN. Common reasons:

• You just imported. Prices for new positions are on their way (see below).
• The ticker isn't known to any provider. Old or unusual tickers, broker-internal codes, and stocks renamed after a merger. Rows whose ticker can't be found at all are skipped on import (UNRESOLVABLE_TICKER); see How imports work.
• The stock is delisted. It no longer trades, so there is no price to fetch.
• The ticker was renamed. When a fund or company changes its ticker (WPAY became TOPW), the app notices within about a day of the change reaching it and moves your trades to the new ticker by itself: the position, its dividends and its sale end up together under the new name.
• The option has expired. Expired contracts have no quote.
• A provider couldn't answer. The app tries again later, waiting longer each time: after an hour, then six hours, then a day, and at most a week between tries.
• No one trades it. Some option contracts have no quote for long stretches.

A price can also be late without being missing: a quote from before a holiday or a weekend stays the current price until the market reopens.

Loading market data after an import

When an import adds open positions that have no price yet, clicking Done in the import window opens the Loading Market Data page. It shows "Fetching prices for N positions…" with a progress bar, then returns to Accounts & Data by itself.

• Skip to app leaves right away. Prices keep loading and appear as they arrive.
• If progress stops moving for about 20 seconds, the page gives up waiting and tells you "Some prices are still loading and will appear automatically."
• If every open position already has a price, the page doesn't appear at all.

Earnings dates

Earnings dates are checked every morning for every US stock, a week back and about three months ahead, with the time of day when it's known. Canadian listings and anything else that source doesn't cover are looked up one by one, weekly, or daily when a date is near. ETFs and funds have no earnings.

A date is expected until confirmed. For stocks you hold, watch or track, the app checks within 14 days of the date and stops once it's confirmed. Reported quarters (EPS against the estimate) are kept for those stocks, US only for now. When you add a ticker its data is fetched right away.

Extended-hours prices

From 7:00 to 9:30 AM ET and from 4:00 to 8:00 PM ET the app refreshes the stocks your swing alerts follow, and the market indices. The regular price stays the session's; the extended price is measured from the last regular close. Other stocks get one refresh after the close, and nothing is refreshed overnight.

Dividend data

Dividend history decides two things you'll see:

• Ex-dividend dates. Your dividends are matched to positions using them. A dividend whose ex-date isn't in the history yet uses its payment date until it is. See Dividends.
• Frequency and the latest dividend. The Dividends projections use the latest dividend per share and how often the stock pays. A stock whose frequency isn't known is shown as Unknown and gets no estimate.

Only dividends the market data reports as dividends are kept. A spin-off or a fund distribution reported as a price adjustment is never turned into a dividend, because its cash amount isn't known (a spin-off pays no cash at all). Your broker's dividend rows are always what you received. See also Splits the app isn't sure about.

Checking the service

The Status page shows whether Market Data is working. If it shows a problem, prices may be older than usual until it recovers.

Related

• Performance and P&L: how open P&L uses the latest price.
• How imports work: what happens to tickers the app can't find.
• Ticker Reports: the quote, chart and company facts.