Hi:

(1) The first argument to get.hist.quote() is instrument, not instruments. I
concur with David that get.hist.quote()
      takes a single character string as an argument.

(2) I tried running this with lapply() but got a download error on the last
one:

getStockData("PBR-B")
trying URL '
http://chart.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=PBR-B&a=0&b=01&c=2011&d=0&e=31&f=2011&g=d&q=q&y=0&z=PBR-B&x=.csv
'
Error in download.file(url, destfile, method = method, quiet = quiet) :
  cannot open URL '
http://chart.yahoo.com/table.csv?s=PBR-B&a=0&b=01&c=2011&d=0&e=31&f=2011&g=d&q=q&y=0&z=PBR-B&x=.csv
'
In addition: Warning message:
In download.file(url, destfile, method = method, quiet = quiet) :
  cannot open: HTTP status was '404 Not Found'


If we take out that (last) symbol , convert the remaining symbols to a
vector, create a simple download function and use lapply(), then...

Tickers <- as.vector(unlist(tickers))[-6]          # character vector
getStockData <- function(symbols)  {
     coredata(get.hist.quote(instrument = symbols,
              start="2011-01-01", end="2011-01-31",
              quote=c("Close"), provider="yahoo"))
    }
stockdata <- lapply(Tickers, getStockData)     # produces a list of five
components
names(stockdata) <- Tickers
stockdata[[1]]
$XOM
      Close
 [1,] 74.55
 [2,] 74.90
 [3,] 74.70
<snip>
[18,] 79.88
[19,] 78.99
[20,] 80.68

HTH,
Dennis


On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 9:18 PM, algotr8der <algotr8der@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks David for the reply. I just tried the following with the same
> result:
>
> >library(tseries)
> >tickers <- read.csv("testticker.txt", header=FALSE, sep=",")
> >tickers <- tickers[1]
>     V1
> 1   XOM
> 2   COP
> 3 PBR-A
> 4  FFIV
> 5    SU
> 6 PBR-B
>
>
> > tickers$V1 <- as.character(tickers$V1)
> > tickers$V1
> [1] "XOM"   "COP"   "PBR-A" "FFIV"  "SU"    "PBR-B"
>
> > symbols <- tickers$V1
> > symbols
> [1] "XOM"   "COP"   "PBR-A" "FFIV"  "SU"    "PBR-B"
>
> > stockdata <- data.frame()
> > stockdata <- coredata(get.hist.quote(instruments=symbols,
> > start="2011-01-01", end="2011-01-31", quote=c("Close"),
> provider="yahoo"))
> Error in get.hist.quote(instruments = symbols, start = "2011-01-01", end =
> "2011-01-31",  :
>  unused argument(s) (instruments = symbols)
>
>
>
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://r.789695.n4.nabble.com/pass-character-vector-in-instrument-field-of-get-hist-quote-function-tp3350779p3351331.html
> Sent from the R help mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
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