beliavsky[at]aol.com wrote:
- quote -

Tad Borek wrote:
- quote -

I'm still puzzled. So far we have "reinvestment of dividends",
"adjusted for dividends", and "moving target". Yet Yahoo! (and only
Yahoo!, as far as I can search), says it has to do with avoiding
"negative historical pricing".

Here is exactly what Yahoo! Finance help says about the "adjusted close"
column that is provided (info about split adjustments omitted, that one
I think I understand). The explanation goes on to provide an example of
how the numbers are actually calculated.

"Dividend multipliers are calculated based on dividend as a percentage
of price, primarily to avoid negative historical pricing. For example,
when a $0.08 cash dividend is distributed on Feb 19 (ex-date), and the
Feb 18 closing price was 24.96, the pre-dividend data is multiplied by
(1-0.08/24.96) = 0.9968."

-Mark Bole

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raylopez99 wrote:
- quote -

Caveat on "adjusted close" -- it's a moving target that is only valid
for the day you check it. Meaning, if you write down a the numerical
value for the adjusted closing price for a given date, and re-check it
months later, the value will be different (if any dividends were paid,
that is...with no dividends, adjusted close = close, there's no need for
any adjustment).

It doesn't go back 20 years but the Russell site (www.russell.com) has
free downloads of their index data for two versions of their indices --
nominal value, and with dividends reinvested, which is a completely
different number series. For example the Russell 3000 (one proxy for
"the US market") closed at 1373 on Friday, but the dividend-reinvested
index value was 3160.

-Tad

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raylopez99 wrote:

- quote -

Shiller has data through August 2006 available at:

http://www.irrationalexuberance.com/...ds/ie_data.xls

You'll have to adjust returns for dividends yourself, but the dividend
data is there to do it with.


-Will

william dot trice at ngc dot com

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On Mar 9, 4:26*am, beliav...[at]aol.com wrote:

Thanks, I figured this out later. Indeed the last column in Yahoo's
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=%5EGSPC historical quotes on the S&P
500 is adjusted for dividends.

I also found that even for five years out, the end point is
important: for example, picking February 29, 2008 as your end point
rather than two days earlier (Feb. 27) gives almost a half point
difference in average yearly return over five years!

As for other free data sources, I don't know of any except Reuters
Business and some (10 yrs) free Morningstar stats.

RL

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On Mar 8, 7:20 pm, raylopez99 <raylope...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

You can download from Yahoo historical daily prices and dividends for
the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund (VFINX) since March 27, 1987 from
Yahoo. Yahoo also provides an "Adjusted Close" column that reflects
the reinvestment of dividends. The fund tracks the S&P 500 very
closely and has had low expenses, now about 0.1% annually, earlier
maybe about 0.2%.

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On Mar 8, 7:20*pm, raylopez99 <raylope...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

Summary numbers on broad indexes like the SP500 should be available -
Google it, or search for articles at financial news services. For
individual issues, most libraries carry Value Line at the reference
desk, with data for the past 15+ years on their universe of 1700
stocks.

Do you happen to know where to locate 15 - 20 years of earnings data
for all stocks (not just Value Line)? I wasn't aware of MSCI Barra. I
Googled for earnings, and came up with a comprehensive service, but it
was a pretty raw database, and a subscription of $3,400(!). Long Term
Values (owned by the company that does Daily Graphs) was a great $289/
yr service, complete with charts and company descriptions, but they
ceased publication years ago - and would not disclose their data
source.

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Does anybody know where I can get free data going back 20 to 25 years
for stock data (US) that includes dividends reinvested? Here's my
dilemma: I can go to Yahoo/Google and get price data for the S&P500,
Dow, etc, but this data does not include the dividend. Usually the
last 10 years the dividend has been rather small, but it skews my
numbers when the dividend is not included in the number. I would like
to get either month-by-month data or year end data for any 'broad' US
stock index. At one point, I was getting this for free at MSCI Barra
but last I logged on they've changed their policy and this data is no
longer available.

So, in summary, I need free data to do the following:

get the total return between two points in time, starting in 1980.
Say I want to know the return of the stock market (including dividends
reinvested) from March 12, 1986 to June 1, 2005. I would get two
numbers for these two dates (or closest date to these two dates), plug
them into my financial calculator, then get the geometric return per
year.

Thank you

RL

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