Differentiating Between Stock Investor Data Downloads
A popular benefit of Stock Investor Pro is the weekly data updates that are available for download from the Stock Investor section of AAII.com (Figure 1). Subscribers to the quarterly version of Stock Investor cannot make use of the weekly data updates.
To accommodate the varying data needs and Internet connection speeds of our users, three different data download files are available: a program and data update file as well as a "partial" and a "full" data-only update. What are the differences between these three data files and when are they available for download?
The program and data download is intended for those that do not have Stock Investor Pro installed on their PC. This file will install the program as well as the latest weekly and monthly data. If you already have Stock Investor Pro installed and wish to update the data, you can use either of the other two weekly data updates available on the Web site.
As the names suggest, there is a difference in the scope of the data coverage for these two "data only" update files as well as a difference in their size (and time it takes to download).
The primary focus of the partial data update is the price-sensitive data in Stock Investor Pro. When you download and install the partial data update, the following data in Stock Investor Pro is updated:
Please note that these partial weekly files will NOT update the financial statement data—income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement—or the monthly and annual price data. This data is updated with the full weekly update discussed below, or by installing the latest monthly Stock Investor Pro CD. The partial update file is approximately 8 MB in size and the download time for a 56.6 Kbps dial-up connection is roughly 20 minutes.
Conversely, the full weekly update covers the entire Stock Investor Pro database; beyond the data found in the partial weekly updates (listed above), the full weekly update also includes:
Since the full update contains more data than the partial update, it is a much larger file-approximately 34 MB. Therefore, we do not recommend downloading this file if you only have a dial-up connection, as there is a good chance the file will be corrupted and will not run. We recommend that only those with high-speed Internet connections-such as cable modems, DSL, T1 or T3 lines-attempt to download the full weekly update file. Furthermore, if you do have a high-speed Internet connection, we recommend you use the full weekly update.
Availability of Weekly Download
Typically, the weekly data update files are updated and ready for download from the AAII Web site by Sunday morning Central Time. However, any data problems encountered during our quality assurance checks or delays in receiving the data from our data vendor may delay the release of the updated files.
AAII Stock Investor Pro Updates RSS Feed
In an effort to keep Stock Investor Pro subscribers better informed of the status of the weekly data updates, we are now offering an RSS feed specifically for the weekly data downloads.
RSS, short for Real Simple Syndication, is a publishing format that lets people view headlines of the latest updates from Web sites within a single newsreader or aggregator program. More importantly, you can receive content automatically by "subscribing" to a Web feed—there is no cost involved—so you do not have to keep going to the AAII Web site to see if the latest weekly updates are available. Another advantage of RSS feeds is that they do not run the risk of ending up in your spam filter, which can happen with E-mail messages. For more information on AAII RSS feeds, please click here.